Kiss and tell: NASA craft takes aim at asteroid
An SUV-size spacecraft is about to launch on an audacious mission: to track down a big, bad space rock, give it a kiss and stealthily pilfer some of its bulk.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx robotic craft is scheduled to blast off Sept. 8 on a seven-year, roundtrip journey to the asteroid, which poses a slim chance of slamming into Earth about 150 years from now. Assuming the ship makes it back in 2023 as planned, it will carry as much as 41⁄2 pounds of dust and gravel from the rock’s surface.
“We are bringing back scientific treasure,” the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the mission, told reporters Wednesday.
If all goes well, the payoff from OSIRIS-REx will be enormous. Data gathered by the craft will help clarify the motion of asteroids, knowledge that could pinpoint which ones pose a threat to Earth.
More grandly, the $800 million mission could help researchers understand the origins of earthly life.
The target, a space rock named Bennu, is thought to be a wellpreserved hunk of the stuff that made up the planets when they formed billions of years ago. Scientists think Bennu is rich in organic molecules and water.
Analysis of fragments might help reveal whether asteroids seeded Earth with ingredients for life. And it’s part self-preservation, as there’s a one-in-2,700 chance Bennu will hit Earth toward the end of the next century.