Context:
NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex capsule carrying first asteroid samples landed on Earth into the Utah desert.
About OSIRIS-Rex:
- Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security- Regolith Explorer
- Launched in 2016.
- NASA’s 1st mission to collect a sample from near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
- In 2020, OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected samples of dust and pebbles from asteroid Bennu.
Asteroids (minor planets) are rocky objects that orbit the Sun in a zone lying between Mars and Jupiter. They are the remnants from formation of solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.
About Bennu:
- A B-type asteroid, i.e., it contains significant amounts of carbon and various other minerals.
- It reflects about 4% of the light that hits it (Earth reflects about 30% and Venus reflects about 65 %).
- Bennu was formed in first 10 million years of solar system’s creations.
- It has not gone through a lot of composition-altering change through billions of years, which means that below its surface lie chemicals and rocks from the birth of the solar system.
- Significance of asteroid samples:
- To better understand planet formation and origin of organics and water that led to life on Earth.
- Benefit humanity by learning more about potentially hazardous asteroids.
Other missions to bring asteroid samples to earth:
- Stardust spacecraft (USA) delivered comet dust samples.
- Hayabusa2 (Japan), only other country to bring back asteroid samples, collected sample from asteroid Ryugu.
Source: The Hindu
Previous Year Question
Which of the following pair(s) is/are correctly matched?
Spacecraft: Purpose
1. Cassini-Huygens: Orbiting the Venus and transmitting data to the Earth
2. Messenger: Mapping and investigating the Mercury
3. Voyager 1 & 2: Exploring the outer solar system
Select the correct answer using the codes given below.
[UPSC Civil Services Exam – 2014 Prelims]
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b)
