this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Updates and Discussion Thread! (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/space
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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/5770334

Welcome everyone!

About OSIRIS-REx

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, will return to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, with material from asteroid Bennu. When it arrives, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will release the sample capsule for a safe landing in the Utah desert. The pristine material from Bennu – rocks and dust collected from the asteroid’s surface in 2020 – will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the Sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago. NASA’s live coverage of the OSIRIS-REx sample capsule landing starts at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT).

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Please feel free to post updates and questions in the comments!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone not into astronomy much, what are the practical specific questions nasa hopes these samples will help answer?

Is this more knowledge-expanding, general knowledge or is there some specific goal for these samples?

[–] AFKBRBChocolate 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing with looking at rocks and stuff on our planet is that we have weather that constantly erodes them and we have a molten core that makes a rock stew that gets spewed out of volcanoes. Asteroids, on the other hand, are sailing around through empty space looking just the way they did when they were formed four and a half billion years ago. So we can learn a lot about the formation of the universe by looking at those rocks that have been frozen in time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Oh, I see. Thanks, I appreciate it, looking at an artifact frozen in time puts the whole endeavor into perspective for me.