![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/osiris-rex-asteroid-bennu-is-a-journey-back-to-our-origins/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/131144331_re-entry.png&description=Image source, NASA Image caption, Artwork: The Osiris-Rex spacecraft spent two years mapping Bennu before grabbing a sample Nasa's Osiris-Rex capsule will come screaming into Earth's atmosphere on Sunday at more than 15 times the speed of a rifle bullet. It will make a fireball in the sky as it does so, but a heat shield and parachutes will slow the descent and bring it into a gentle touchdown in Utah's West Desert. The capsule caries a precious cargo - a handful of dust grabbed from asteroid Bennu, a mountain-sized space rock that promises to inform the most profound of questions: Where do we come from? "When we get the 250g (9oz) of asteroid Bennu back on Earth, we'll be looking at material that existed before our planet, maybe even some grains that existed before our Solar System," says Prof Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator on the mission. "We're trying to piece together our beginnings. How did the Earth form and why is it a habitable world? Where did the oceans get their water; where did the air in our atmosphere come from; and most importantly, what is the source of the organic molecules that make up all life on Earth?" The prevailing thinking is that many of the key components were actually delivered to our planet early in its history in a rain of impacting asteroids, many of them perhaps just like Bennu. Engineers have commanded the final adjustments to the Osiris-Rex spacecraft's trajectory. All that remains is to make the "go, no-go" decision to release the capsule to fall to Earth this weekend. Image source, NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona Image caption, Asteroid Bennu is a "rubble pile" - a loose collection of material left over from building the planets The quest to acquire fragments of Bennu began in 2016, when Nasa launched the Osiris-Rex probe towards the 500m (1,640ft) wide object. It took two years to reach the body and a further two years of mapping before the mission team could confidently identify a location on the space rock's surfa){kind=link}
Nasa’s Osiris-Rex capsule will come screaming into Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday at more than 15 times the speed of a rifle bullet.
It will make a fireball in the sky as it does so, but a heat shield and parachutes will slow the descent and bring it into a gentle touchdown in Utah’s West Desert.
The capsule carries a precious cargo – a handful of dust grabbed from asteroid Bennu, a mountain-sized space rock that promises to inform the most profound of questions: Where do we come from?
“When we get the 250g (9oz) of asteroid Bennu back on Earth, we’ll be looking at material that existed before our planet, maybe even some grains that existed before our Solar System,” says Prof Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator on the mission.
“We’re trying to piece together our beginnings. How did the Earth form and why is it a habitable world? Where did the oceans get their water; where did the air in our atmosphere come from; and most importantly, what is the source of the organic molecules that make up all life on Earth?”