OSIRIS-REx Collected 'So Much' From Asteroid Bennu, Scientists Confirm
LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4/AP) -- After chasing and successfully touching down on an asteroid millions of miles from Earth -- scientists confirmed a Colorado-built spacecraft collected the sample they needed from the surface. OSIRIS-REx was designed and build by Lockheed Martin in Littleton and touched down on the asteroid Bennu last week. The mission was a historic success -- and collected more than 60 grams of material.
"So much sample was collected that some of it is actually slowly escaping the sampling head," officials tweeted.
OSIRIS-REx touched Bennu for just a matter of seconds and used nitrogen gas fired into the robotic collector to stir up and capture some of the asteroid's surface materials.
RELATED: 'History Was Made': OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Touches Asteroid Bennu, Collects Sample
Now, OSIRIS-REx is sending images and telemetry back to Earth so researchers can decide how to proceed with the next step for stowing the sample.
OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to depart the asteroid in March 2021 and return to earth in September of 2023. The return capsule containing the sample will separate from OSIRIS-REx and collected in Utah.
Scientists are eager to study material from a carbon-rich asteroid like dark Bennu, which is believed to be 4.5 billion years old. It could give scientists clues as to what the solar system was like as it was formed, what chemical building blocks jumpstarted life, how organic material gets transported within the solar system, and what Mars and Venus may have looked like in the past.
RELATED: CU Boulder Researcher Co-Authors Study That Finds Water On The Sunlit Side Of The Moon
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
.
