What Exactly Did NASA Find In New Asteroid Samples?
It’s been over 7 years since NASA launched a spacecraft intended to retrieve samples from an Asteroid. A few weeks ago the sample successfully landed in the Utah desert and was just partially opened by NASA scientists. Inside is the largest asteroid sample ever returned to Earth. Initial scientific returns are promising, showing that Bennu is rich in both water and carbon-containing compounds.
When NASA picked Asteroid Bennu, they were hoping that it would contain these exact features. Interestingly, when the spacecraft first made contact, it actually grabbed more rocks and dust than expected. Now NASA is able to figure out exactly how much was extracted and the quality of the sample.
Even though the capsule landed a few weeks ago, NASA is taking its time and doing everything in its power to ensure the samples are not contaminated. This way they can be sure that whatever features and compounds shown are from the asteroid and not Earth. Here I will go more in-depth into the initial results, why they are so important, plans for the future, and more.
A Long Journey
The OSIRIS Rex mission launched in 2016, arrived at the asteroid in 2018, grabbed its sample in 2020, and just landed back on Earth a few weeks ago. Since then, the sample has been all over the country and very busy. First, soon after landing, they placed the 100-pound capsule into a metal cradle and wrapped it in multiple sheets of Teflon and then a tarp. Next, the team wrapped the crate in a harness and secured it to one end of a 100-foot cable hanging from a helicopter. NASA then flew the capsule to a local clean room. Here it was disassembled and packaged in parts for transport to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, its permanent home.
By September 25th the capsule had arrived at the Hojnson Space Center. The sample arrived in Houston at 12:40 pm ET (11:40 am CT) aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, which landed at Ellington Field. From there, it was transferred to NASA Johnson. With the sample now in the planned clean room, NASA was ready to access the sample. The clean room includes custom glove boxes built to fit the sample canister containing the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head inside. The TAGSAM head was on the end of a robotic arm that collected rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu’s surface on October 20, 2020.
Having practiced these procedures for months, scientists and technicians planned to proceed through the many steps of removing the sample from the TAGSAM. On the 26th, the lid was removed. A few days later NASA realized that this process was going to take longer than expected, but for a good reason. In a statement the agency said, “The initial curation process for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample of asteroid Bennu is moving slower than anticipated, but for the best reason: the sample runneth over.” They went on to highlight that the abundance of material found when the science canister lid was removed earlier this week has meant that the process of disassembling the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head – which holds the bulk of material from the asteroid – is off to a methodical start.
In other words, the spacecraft grabbed so much material that there is extra in places it’s not necessarily meant to be. After the collection event on Bennu three years ago, scientists expected they could find some asteroid material in the canister outside the TAGSAM head when they saw particles slowly escaping the head before it was stowed. However, the actual amount of dark particles coating the inside of the canister lid and base that surrounds the TAGSAM is even more than they’d anticipated.
“The very best ‘problem’ to have is that there is so much material, it’s taking longer than we expected to collect it,” said deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead Christopher Snead of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “There’s a lot of abundant material outside the TAGSAM head that’s interesting in its own right. It’s really spectacular to have all that material there.”
At that point, the agency was trying to remove the excess material but also study it as its just as valuable as the main sample. Some of the initial science included using the scanning electron microscope (SEM), infrared measurements, and x-ray diffraction (XRD), to gain a better understanding of the sample. The SEM in particular will offer a chemical and morphological analysis, while the infrared measurements should provide information on whether the sample contains hydrated minerals and organic-rich particles. The x-ray diffraction is sensitive to the different minerals in a sample and will give an inventory of the minerals and perhaps an indication of their proportions. These were all operations completed late last month in September.
Sample Results
This leads us to today as the agency gets closer to the primary Asteroid sample. NASA reported that while teams continue to collect the bonus asteroid Bennu particles, they’ve also completed additional steps toward disassembly and reveal of the bulk asteroid sample inside the head. The agency was quoted saying, “Curation scientists removed 14 circular witness plates from the top of the TAGSAM head on Monday and Tuesday. These plates were used to monitor the interior environmental conditions of the spacecraft at various points during the mission and were carefully contained and stored away for contamination knowledge. After removing all 14 plates and collecting any remaining loose dust, the team removed the TAGSAM head from its avionics deck platform and had the first opportunity to view the 24 surface contact pads on the bottom of the head and the asteroid sample beneath the collector head.”
Yesterday NASA held a sample reveal broadcast where they went over a bunch of the initial discoveries and data gathered from these samples. “The OSIRIS-REx sample is the biggest carbon rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth and will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Almost everything we do at NASA seeks to answer questions about who we are and where we come from,” Nelson added. “NASA missions like OSIRIS-REx will improve our understanding of asteroids that could threaten Earth while giving us a glimpse into what lies beyond. The sample has made it back to Earth, but there is still so much science to come — science like we’ve never seen before.”
Looking at one image in particular “You can see that they have a metallic luster to them,” said one NASA scientist. “So when you shine light, they sparkle back and reflect that light” she said. In addition, a NASA report commented that “Initial studies of the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu sample collected in space and brought to Earth by NASA show evidence of high-carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock.
The goal of the OSIRIS-REx sample collection was 60 grams of asteroid material. Curation experts at NASA Johnson, working in new clean rooms built especially for the mission, have spent 10 days so far carefully disassembling the sample return hardware to obtain a glimpse at the bulk sample within. “Our labs were ready for whatever Bennu had in store for us,” said the director, NASA Johnson. “We’ve had scientists and engineers working side-by-side for years to develop specialized gloveboxes and tools to keep the asteroid material pristine and to curate the samples so researchers now and decades from now can study this precious gift from the cosmos.”
“As we peer into the ancient secrets preserved within the dust and rocks of asteroid Bennu, we are unlocking a time capsule that offers us profound insights into the origins of our solar system,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, University of Arizona, Tucson. “The bounty of carbon-rich material and the abundant presence of water-bearing clay minerals are just the tip of the cosmic iceberg. These discoveries, made possible through years of dedicated collaboration and cutting-edge science, propel us on a journey to understand not only our celestial neighborhood but also the potential for life’s beginnings. With each revelation from Bennu, we draw closer to unraveling the mysteries of our cosmic heritage.”
They finished by highlighting that for the next two years, the mission’s science team will continue characterizing the samples and conduct the analysis needed to meet the mission’s science goals. NASA will preserve at least 70% of the sample at Johnson for further research by scientists worldwide, including future generations of scientists. As part of OSIRIS-REx’s science program, a cohort of more than 200 scientists around the world will explore the regolith’s properties, including researchers from many U.S. institutions, NASA partners JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and other scientists from around the world. Additional samples will also be loaned later this fall to the Smithsonian Institution, Space Center Houston, and the University of Arizona for public display. A process we can expect to hear more about in the next few months.
Conclusion
NASA just revealed some of the initial discoveries from the OSIRIS Rex sample return mission. The samples show signs of water and other compounds that NASA was hoping to see. Now they are preparing for even more science in the coming months. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.
