A capsule with soil samples from the asteroid Bennu returned to earth
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Today, a capsule with soil samples collected from the asteroid Bennu landed in the US state of Utah. The capsule was dropped earlier by the American spacecraft OSIRIS-Rex.
According to NASA, the capsule, which contains approximately 250 grams of soil, landed at 17:55 Moscow time in the desert in Utah, 122 km from Salt Lake City.
The capsule was dropped from an altitude of approximately 102 thousand km. When she entered the Earth’s atmosphere, she released her parachute.
The capsule will now be sent for study to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. A report on what was found in the samples is expected on October 11.
Let us recall that the OSIRIS-Rex device was launched in 2016. It reached the asteroid Bennu in December 2018, and soil sampling from the asteroid’s surface was carried out using a robotic arm in October 2020.
These samples should shed light on the formation of the solar system, which occurred 4.5 billion years ago. It is believed that the surface of the asteroid Bennu could have preserved matter from the time of the birth of the Solar system.
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