Soil from asteroid Bennu was successfully delivered to Earth

After two and a half years of space travel and seven years since the launch of the mission to Earth, delivered soil samples from the asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx capsule, containing about 250 grams of rocks, made a safe parachute landing at a test site in the United States.

Due to concerns that the capsule might have been damaged on impact or that the samples might have become contaminated in the atmosphere, a special team of experts was rushed to the landing site. The cargo was quickly picked up by helicopter and transported to a temporary field clean room in the hangar. There it was purged with nitrogen to remove any potential contaminants.

The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched back in 2016, was the first American attempt to return samples from an asteroid. On December 3, 2018, a NASA spacecraft arrived at Bennu, which has a diameter of about 500 meters. On October 20, 2020, the device landed and picked up the first samples. On May 10, 2021, the return capsule was sent to Earth, and the main spacecraft entered solar orbit.

Bennu is called a "doomsday asteroid" due to its enormous size, unclear nature and proximity to Earth. The OSIRIS-REx probe, which we managed to make a few photos when landing, he might not take off from it at all. The surface of the celestial body turned out to be very loose, so the device simply began to fall into Bennu.

NASA scientists believe that studying this asteroid will help us learn more about the early stages of the solar system.