NASA's spacecraft soared to the asteroid that could destroy the Earth for specimens

NASA's OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft is powered by Earth to fly into space, beginning its journey to the asteroid Bennu taking a few specimens and returning to Earth in 2023.

NASA will shoot asteroids close to Earth
Why did NASA choose Bennu as a model asteroid?
A more than 4-kilometer asteroid is about to cross the Earth with the closest distance ever reached

Atlas rocket successfully launched OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft on the evening of September 8, 2016 (local time) in Florida, USA.
OSIRIS-Rex has been around for a year to fly around the Sun and it will fly over Earth today. Taking advantage of Earth's gravity and using planetary orbit, OSIRIS-Rex will reach a speed of nearly 13,700 km / h to reach its position in a plane with Bennu. As expected, in August 2018, OSIRIS-Rex will arrive at this asteroid.

Bennu asteroid was discovered in 1999, 500m high, more than the height of the Empire State Tower in the US and has the ability to collide causing serious consequences for our planet.

University of Arizona professor Dante Lauretta, who led the project, said if Bennu crashed into Earth, a collision would be equivalent to detonating 3 billion tons of TNT. At that time most of the life on the ground was blown away like 'hung god' that had swept away dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. The estimated risk of collisions is about 1: 2,700, and in the period from 2175 to 2196.

NASA's spacecraft soared to the asteroid that could destroy the Earth for specimens Picture 1 Bennu asteroid has a larger diameter than the height of Empire State Tower.(Graphic: BBC).

Scientists hope, the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft will gain about 60 to 400 grams of the asteroid's specimens brought to Earth, opening Bennu's research opportunities more closely to its chemical properties and ways. Go through the solar system.

NASA's spacecraft soared to the asteroid that could destroy the Earth for specimens Picture 2

OSIRIS-REx will return to Earth in March 2021. Part of the ship will return home and drop the sample container into the Utah desert on September 24, 2023. The rest of it will continue to fly. follow the Sun's trajectory and serve NASA's next purposes.

If the specimen landed safely and intact, this would be the first time NASA brought it back from an asteroid

spacecraft

Kareem Winters

Update 24 May 2019

You should read it

May be interested

A more than 4-kilometer asteroid is about to cross the Earth with the closest distance ever reached
on september 1, a giant asteroid named florence with an estimated diameter of 4.3 km will fly over earth at the closest distance.
Scientists have released detailed images of an asteroid that just passed Earth at close range
not one, but two asteroids alone passed earth at close range - not so close, of course, that they could threaten the planet's survival, but enough for scientists to can clearly observe them.
Cassini spacecraft, $ 3.26 billion machine 'bombarded' Saturn, ending its 20-year mission
nasa's cassini probe is coming closer to the unimaginable goal of approaching saturn's moon, fulfilling its 20-year mission before crashing into the planet on september 15.
Admire the beautiful images of Earth taken by the Blue Ghost spacecraft
it's been a week since firefly aerospace's blue ghost mission began its journey to the moon, carrying nasa's scientific instruments and aiming to perform the second commercial soft landing on the planet's surface.
Detecting the second Moon of the Earth, the diameter is only about 3.5m
besides the moon we all know about, astronomers at the catalina sky survey recently discovered a second natural satellite orbiting the earth.
23 billion km away from Earth, how the spacecraft communicates with us
the spacecraft communicates with earth by radio waves via the deep space network (dsn), a collection of large radio antennas that are evenly spaced around the globe.
NASA has just discovered an asteroid with an extremely 'weird' shape
asteroids are rocky, airless bodies that orbit the sun. asteroids are smaller than planets but larger than meteorites and are not comets.
How far is the Earth from celestial bodies in the solar system?
but if we could build a spacecraft with a speed of light of 1,080 million km / h, how long would it take humans to discover distant planets in the solar system?
How will a meteorite be found to crash into NASA Earth?
according to nasa, the situation of meteorites crashing into and destroying the earth will be rare, in a million years a meteor with a diameter of 1 mile rushes to earth. even so, they are always ready to handle if the worst situation occurs.
How much money does it take to get to Earth 2 and how long does it take?
after calculating, these numbers will surprise you.

NASA's spacecraft soared to the asteroid that could destroy the Earth for specimens

You should read it

May be interested

Space Science