NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid Bennu sample unveiled at the Smithsonian museum
In September, NASA reached a unique milestone when its ambitious project, the OSIRIS-REx mission, was completed successfully. The spacecraft traveled 6.2 billion kilometers to meet an asteroid named Bennu in deep space, collected samples, and then delivered them to the Earth. These samples, collected for the first time ever by humanity, are expected to answer some of the biggest questions around the origin of the Earth, the life of the planet, and the solar system itself. And now, a small piece of this sample has been placed in the iconic Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History so that people can come and appreciate the historic feat.
According to a report by Payload Space, the asteroid sample was unveiled at the museum on Friday. The unveiling was a ceremonious occasion as the rock was placed in the meteorite gallery of the museum. Bennu has been given an enclosure of its own, where it sits in a stainless steel container, surrounded by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and the Atlas V rocket.
The claim that these asteroid samples might unlock the mysteries of life's beginnings on Earth isn't merely hype. Researchers have explained that the carbon molecules in these samples are fundamental to the evolution of life, and studying them can reveal how life could have emerged on Earth. This asteroid is believed to be cut from the same fabric that formed our solar system, and has remained untouched by space. In a way, it is a pristine piece of rock that can show us exactly how the world was billions of years ago.
"In the four and a half, five billion years of evolution of this solar system, the 13.8 billion years of the evolution of the universe and its billions of galaxies, each having billions of stars, these things run into one
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
