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NASA cases Asteroid Bennu ahead of snatch and grab — finds six new secrets, including a possible void under the surface

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacecraft-asteroid-landing-osiris-rex-2020-10">NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft</a> recently touched down on an <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> called <keyword id="2192688" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bennu">Bennu</keyword> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">sucked up a sample</a> from its surface.</li><li>The probe has been orbiting Bennu for two years.</li><li>Now its data shows that Bennu is hollow.</li><li>The space rock is spinning rapidly, pushing its material out toward its surface. It could eventually spin itself to pieces.</li></ul><p>The asteroid Bennu just keeps getting more bizarre.</p><p>When <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> decided to send a probe to land on a space rock and bring back samples, it picked Bennu for its seemingly smooth surface — perfect landing ground. But once the <keyword id="1369683" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="OSIRIS-REx">Osiris-Rex</keyword> spacecraft had made the 200-million-mile journey to Bennu, the images it beamed back revealed a landscape covered in boulders and rock fields.</p><p>NASA eventually chose the flattest spot it could find to land, and the touch-and-go operation to scoop up material went smoothly last month. But then came the next surprise: Bennu's rock turned out to be incredibly soft, crumbling under the spacecraft as it touched the surface.</p><p>The probe fired a blast of nitrogen to send rock and dust swirling — that way it could catch some in its sample-collection tool. But yet again, scientists were caught off-guard when the maneuver turned out to have yielded so much material that dust and rock were propping the sample-collection tool open, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-sample-leaking-into-space-2020-10">allowing precious alien dust to leak into space</a>.</p><p>They managed to stow the sample before losing too much, but that wasn't the last of the shocks. Recently, University of Colorado researchers concluded based on data Osiris-Rex has collected in the two years it's been circling Bennu that the asteroid is probably hollow. </p><p>"It's as if there is a void at its center, within which you could fit a couple of football fields," Daniel Scheeres, a professor in the university's Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences who led the research, said in a <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/10/08/scientists-peer-inside-asteroid">press release</a>.</p><p>What's more, Bennu could be spinning itself to pieces.</p><h2>'The whole thing flying apart'</h2><p>While Osiris-Rex has been orbiting Bennu, the probe has measured how much the asteroid's gravity pulled on it. At the same time, Bennu was also flinging marble-sized bits of rock away from its surface. Those crumbs entered orbit around the asteroid, then some of them fell back to its surface. By tracking their motions, mission managers were able to make calculations about the strength of Bennu's gravity.</p><p>Since gravity comes from mass, these two sets of data allowed Scheeres' team to calculate how material is distributed through the inside of the asteroid. </p><p>Their <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/41/eabc3350">findings</a>, published in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Advances on October 8 (before Osiris-Rex's brief landing), show that it's far from even. The force of the Bennu' spinning seems to be pushing its material outward towards the surface. Some of the thinnest parts of the asteroid are at its bulging equator.</p><p>Bennu completes one rotation every four hours, and it's only getting faster. </p><p>"You could imagine maybe in a million years or less, the whole thing flying apart," Scheeres said.</p><h2>Bennu could hold secrets about the origins of life </h2><div type="image" title="osiris rex asteroid bennu illustration nasa" height="1080" width="1440" msid="79114100" hostid="261"></div><p>Bennu is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids in our solar system, according to Osiris-Rex principal investigator Dante Lauretta, since it has a "non-negligible chance" of crashing into Earth during the 22nd century. Its fragility could be good <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword>, though.</p><p>Studying Bennu could help future scientists make a plan to divert the asteroid if it ever threatens to impact Earth. The research could also reveal new details about the lives of asteroids — primordial piles of rock that coalesced from the leftover bits that didn't make it into planets. Such objects could hold secrets to how our solar system formed and how life arose on Earth.</p><p>"We were hoping to find out what happened to this asteroid over time, which can give us better insight into how all of these small asteroids are changing over millions, hundreds of millions, or even billions of years," Scheeres said. "Our findings exceeded our expectations."</p><p>Osiris-Rex has collected heaps of data that scientists have yet to comb through. The sample it collected is expected back on Earth in 2023.</p><div type="image" title="osiris-rex asteroid bennu sample return" height="338" width="600" msid="79114103" hostid="261"></div><p>Assuming that the capsule holding the sample safely parachutes into the Utah desert as planned in a few years, NASA has said it will preserve a portion of the alien rock for future study with technologies not yet developed. The agency will ship the rest to laboratories all over the world.</p><p>"This is all about understanding our origins, addressing some of the most fundamental questions that we ask ourselves as human beings," Lauretta said before Osiris-Rex landed on the asteroid. "Where did we come from? And are we alone in the universe?"</p>

The asteroid NASA just landed on turns out to be hollow, with a large 'void' at its center. It may be spinning itself to death.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword>'s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/osiris-rex-asteroid-bennu-approach-nasa-tv-youtube-2018-12">Osiris-Rex</a> <keyword id="6375764" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacecraft">spacecraft</keyword> landed on an <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> called <keyword id="2192688" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bennu">Bennu</keyword> and collected samples of its rock on Tuesday.</li><li>The probe, which is the size of a 15-passenger van, maneuvered around hazardous boulder fields to reach its small landing zone.</li><li>NASA does not yet know whether <keyword id="1369683" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="OSIRIS-REx">Osiris-Rex</keyword> scooped up enough rock. If it did, the sample could help scientists learn how life arose on Earth.</li><li>The mission could also help NASA deflect the asteroid if it is found to be at risk of crashing into Earth.</li></ul><p>NASA just landed a spacecraft on an asteroid.</p><p>If everything went as planned, the probe also sucked up a sample of dust and rock from the surface.</p><p>From 200 million miles away, NASA and its engineering partner, Lockheed Martin, instructed the Osiris-Rex spacecraft to descend to the surface of a space rock called Bennu, touching it for just five to 10 seconds on Tuesday evening. In that time, the probe should have collected samples from the asteroid's surface, though NASA won't confirm success in that maneuver for several more days. It's set to bring these pieces of Bennu back to Earth in 2023.</p><p>The spacecraft's name is short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. It beamed back confirmation that it had landed on Bennu's surface, and the signal reached Earth at 6:11 p.m. ET — about 18 minutes after the actual touchdown.Mission Control erupted in cheers and applause.</p><p>"Transcendental. I can't believe we actually pulled this off," Dante Lauretta, the mission's principal investigator, said during NASA's live broadcast of the operation. "The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do."</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex asteroid bennu landing sample collection touch and go" height="338" width="600" msid="78774673" hostid="261"></div><p>The goal was for Osiris-Rex to pick up at least one 2.1-ounce (60-gram) sample, which is about a small bag of potato chips' worth of mass.It will take a few days to determine whether the probe did indeed snatch up enough rock. </p><p>The spacecraft has been orbiting Bennu since December 2018. It's set to leave in March 2021, samples in tow, then reach Earth on September 24, 2023.</p><p>The mission's research could be crucial over the next 100-plus years, since Bennu's path puts it at risk of crashing into Earth.</p><p>"Bennu is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids, with a non-negligible chance of impacting the Earth at some point in the 22nd century," Lauretta said in September. "Part of our <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> investigation is about understanding its orbital trajectory, refining the impact probability, and documenting its physical and chemical properties so that future generations can develop an impact-mitigation mission, if that's necessary."</p><p>There are other important reasons to study Bennu as well: As new missions go deeper into space, they will need to make pit stops to mine asteroids for resources like water, which can be split into oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel. The data NASA is gathering from Bennu could help inform future asteroid-mining attempts.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex asteroid bennu touch and go sample collection" height="1471" width="1962" msid="78774662" hostid="261"></div><p>Osiris-Rex is also, in a sense, a soul-searching mission. Asteroids are bits of ancient rock from the beginnings of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. The leftover material that made the rocky planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars — coalesced over time into asteroids, where it's largely preserved in its original form.</p><p>Some theories posit that asteroids delivered key ingredients for life to ancient Earth. On Bennu, scientists may find signs of those ingredients, cluing them in to how life arose on Earth (and possibly on Mars or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venus-clouds-phosphine-gas-microbes-alien-life-2020-9">Venus</a> too).</p><p>If successful, this mission will be one of the first to return samples of primordial rock. Japan's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-lands-spacecraft-on-ryugu-asteroid-2019-7">Hayabusa-2 spacecraft</a> is also set to bring back asteroid samples in December.</p><p>"This is all about understanding our origins, addressing some of the most fundamental questions that we ask ourselves as human beings: Where did we come from? And are we alone in the universe?" Lauretta said.</p><h2>NASA's spacecraft dropped 3,000 feet to blast asteroid dust</h2><p>Osiris-Rex's early data revealed a problem for the mission: Bennu is much rockier than NASA thought. Landing in a field of boulders puts a spacecraft at risk of tipping over and getting stranded.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid bennu rotating osiris rex" height="800" width="800" msid="78774669" hostid="261"></div><p>To target the smoothest possible terrain on the asteroid, the Osiris-Rex mission team chose a landing spot that was much smaller than originally planned. Its leeway was just 26 feet (8 meters), whereas the initial plan expected it to have 164 feet (50 meters). That forced the spacecraft, which is about the size of a 15-passenger van, to target an area roughly equal to six parking spaces on the fast-spinning asteroid.</p><p>The landing spot was a relatively smooth area named Nightingale, which is covered in a fine rocky dust called regolith. This is the material that Osiris-Rex attempted to scoop up.</p><p>The spacecraft slowly descended about 3,280 feet (1 kilometer), maneuvering past a two-story boulder that mission controllers call "Mount Doom." Osiris-Rex had twice rehearsed this descent, practicing "basically everything except for the final two minutes," said Mike Moreau, a project manager.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex asteroid bennu touchdown rehearsal" height="1024" width="1024" msid="78774670" hostid="261"></div><p>The sequence went like this: The spacecraft's thrusters fired, pushing it out of its kilometer-high orbit above Bennu. Then the probe deployed its sample-collection arm and pointed its navigation camera to the asteroid's surface. About 3 1/2 hours later — and about 410 feet above the surface — the spacecraft fired its thrusters again to push itself toward the landing site. After another 10 minutes and another 260 feet of descent, the spacecraft burned its thrusters to maneuver into a precise landing spot.</p><p>If the spacecraft had detected hazardous rocks at its landing point, the probe would have initiated a back-away burn just 16 feet above the surface. But the whole operation seems to have gone according to plan.</p><p>The spacecraft appears to have reached Bennu's surface with its sample-collection arm stretched down. Assuming no snafus arose, this arm should have shot nitrogen gas out of a bottle to stir up the regolith beneath it. In the disturbance, some material was likely caught in the collection tool at the end of the arm.</p><p>Shortly after touchdown, Osiris-Rex fired its thrusters to push itself away from Bennu.</p><h2>NASA will decide whether to stow the sample or try again</h2><p>Once the spacecraft is back in Bennu's orbit, it will take a few days for NASA mission controllers to analyze the regolith sample it collected. If there's enough rock and dust, mission leaders will command the spacecraft to store the sample in a pod for its return to Earth.</p><div type="image" title="osiris-rex asteroid bennu sample collection stowage" height="338" width="600" msid="78774677" hostid="261"></div><p>But if the spacecraft has less than 2.1 ounces of regolith, it will try this whole sequence again in January, targeting a backup site on a different part of the asteroid.</p><p>"By far the most likely outcome that we will have on October 20 is we will contact the surface and come away with a large sample that exceeds our minimum requirements," Moreau said in September. "But Bennu has thrown us a number of curveballs."</p><p>Osiris-Rex was carrying three bottles of nitrogen for stirring up dust, allowing it three attempts to descend to Bennu's surface and collect a proper sample.</p><h2>The Bennu sample should reach Earth in 2023</h2><p>When Osiris-Rex returns to Earth in 2023, it's slated to shoot the capsule containing the samples into Earth's atmosphere. The samples should then parachute into the Utah desert for NASA to pick up.</p><p>"It's going to probably be Christmas in September," Lauretta said. "The best Christmas present I've ever had, these pristine samples from asteroid Bennu that I've been dreaming — literally dreaming — about for, at that point, almost 20 years of my life."</p><div type="image" title="osiris-rex asteroid bennu sample return" height="338" width="600" msid="78774682" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists will set about analyzing the sample, but NASA will preserve some of the regolith for future study.</p><p>"These samples returned from Bennu will also allow future planetary scientists to ask questions we can't even think of today," said Lori Glaze, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, "and to be able to use analysis techniques that aren't even invented yet."</p><p><em>This story has been updated to reflect Osiris-Rex's successful landing on asteroid Bennu.</em></p>

A NASA spacecraft just landed on an asteroid to suck up rocky dust to bring back to Earth. Here's how the mission works.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6355311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="japan">Japan</keyword>'s <keyword id="2083935" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hayabusa-2">Hayabusa-2</keyword> mission <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-lands-spacecraft-on-ryugu-asteroid-2019-7">bombed an asteroid</a> in order to scoop up rock and dust from below its surface.</li><li>The spacecraft <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-live-japan-hayabusa-asteroid-blasting-spacecraft-drops-sample-2020-12">dropped the asteroid material into the Australian outback</a> on Saturday.</li><li>That made Japan the first nation to collect samples from a space rock.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">NASA just collected samples</a> from another <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">asteroid</a>, but it won't bring them back to Earth until 2023. </li><li>Photos show how Japan's space agency, JAXA, accomplished the feat.</li></ul><p>A <keyword id="1278516" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="fireball">fireball</keyword> streaking across the sky disturbed the darkness of the Australian outback on Saturday night. Then the object from space poofed out a parachute, slowing its plummet toward the ground. Minutes later, it landed gently in the red desert dust and began beaming out its location.</p><p>The flying object was a capsule containing the first samples ever collected from an <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> - the fruits of Japan's Hayabusa-2 mission.</p><div type="image" title="hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return japan landing australia fireball" height="2251" width="1500" msid="79615860" hostid="261"></div><p>In 2014, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a spacecraft to asteroid <keyword id="3634650" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="ryugu">Ryugu</keyword>: a primitive, half-mile-wide rock that zips through our solar system up to 131 million miles (211 million kilometers) from the sun. </p><p>The Hayabusa-2 probe <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-spacecraft-touches-down-on-asteroid-to-get-samples-2019-2">landed</a> on Ryugu in February to collect shallow samples from the asteroid's surface. Then two months later, the mission went a step further: The probe blasted a 33-foot crater into Ryugu using a copper plate and a box of explosives. That loosened rocks and exposed material below the surface. In July 2019, Hayabusa-2 lowered itself once again and scooped up the debris.</p><p>Scientists believe this subsurface material could be as old as our solar system, since it's been shielded from the sun's radiation and hasn't undergone the heating and cooling processes that altered rock inside the planets.</p><p>As such, the Hayabusa-2 samples could reveal new details about the beginnings of our solar system and the origins of life on Earth.</p><div type="image" title="Hayabusa2 Ryuku asteroid landing" height="1000" width="1000" msid="79615862" hostid="261"></div><p>With that asteroid loot on board, the spacecraft zipped back and arrived in Earth's orbit on Saturday. Then it released the sample capsule - the "treasure box," as JAXA calls it - and allowed it to fall towards Earth.</p><p>All in all, Hayabusa-2 has traveled nearly 3.3 billion miles. </p><h2>Retrieving asteroid loot from the Australian outback</h2><p>As the capsule rocketed through the atmosphere at 7.5 miles per second, it burned a path across the night sky. JAXA captured the burst in its live feed of the sample return - the embedded video below starts at that moment.</p><p>About 6 miles above the ground, the capsule released a parachute and drifted safely into the wilderness of Woomera, <keyword id="6355478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="australia">Australia</keyword>. It landed at about 2:28 a.m. local time on Sunday.</p><div type="image" title="hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return collection" height="2000" width="2666" msid="79615863" hostid="261"></div><p>Upon arrival, the treasure box beamed out a signal to several nearby antennae, allowing a JAXA team to triangulate the capsule's location.</p><div type="image" title="hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return japan jaxa antenna" height="1333" width="1777" msid="79615864" hostid="261"></div><p>The retrieval team waited until the sun rose, then drove out to the landing spot.</p><p>They reached the capsule at 8:03 a.m. local time and packed it up for travel.</p><div type="image" title="hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return japan jaxa capsule" height="1706" width="2275" msid="79615865" hostid="261"></div><p>"JAXA's outstanding technical achievement today is testament to the depth of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> and technology knowledge in Japan," Jan Adams, Australia's ambassador to Japan, said in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fQGsBKnH-U&amp;feature=emb_logologo">press conference</a>. "Hayabusa-2 has delivered its precious cargo back to Earth."</p><h2>Organic materials on Ryugu could point to the origins of life</h2><p>Next, JAXA will transport the sample to Japan and distribute portions of it for scientific study.</p><p>Ryugu is a C-type asteroid, which means it's rich with organic carbon molecules, water, and possibly amino acids - the building blocks for proteins that were essential to the evolution of life on Earth. Some theories posit that an asteroid first delivered amino acids to our planet.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid ryugu hayabusa-2 video gif" height="450" width="800" msid="79615866" hostid="261"></div><p>"Organic materials are the origins of life on Earth, but we still don't know where they came from," Makoto Yoshikawa, a Hayabusa-2 project mission manager, said in a briefing on Friday, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/04/japan-hayabusa2-asteroid-dust-ryugu">The Guardian</a>. "We are hoping to find clues to the origin of life on Earth by analyzing details of the organic materials brought back by Hayabusa-2."</p><p>The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, meanwhile, will continue on an 11-year extended mission to explore a small, rapidly spinning asteroid called 1998 KY26.</p><h2>NASA is up next</h2><p>A NASA spacecraft scooped up its own asteroid sample this year: Osiris-Rex (short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer). The probe, which launched in 2016, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">high-fived asteroid Bennu</a> on October 20, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-osiris-rex-probe-landing-on-asteroid-kicking-dust-2020-10">landing</a> on its surface for just six seconds to stir up dust. In that brief landing, it collected a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-sample-leaking-into-space-2020-10">whopping 2 pounds of sample material</a>.</p><p>The spacecraft won't return with its bounty until 2023.</p><p>But combined, the samples from Osiris-Rex and Hyabusa-2 will provide the world's first comprehensive set of pristine asteroid material. NASA and JAXA have agreed to share portions of their samples with each other for scientific study.</p><p>Fractions of both agencies' asteroid samples will also be stored for future research.</p><p>"These samples returned from Bennu will also allow future planetary scientists to ask questions we can't even think of today and to be able to use analysis techniques that aren't even invented yet," Lori Glaze, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in a briefing after Osiris-Rex collected its sample.</p>

Japan has completed its 3-billion-mile mission to collect dust from an asteroid. Photos show the prize falling into Australia like a fireball.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6355311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="japan">Japan</keyword>'s <keyword id="2083935" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hayabusa-2">Hayabusa-2</keyword> spacecraft is set to deliver a sample of rock and dust from <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> <keyword id="3634650" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="ryugu">Ryugu</keyword> to Earth on Saturday.</li><li>Hayabusa-2 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-lands-spacecraft-on-ryugu-asteroid-2019-7">blasted the asteroid with a bullet</a> in 2019. The "treasure box" it's bringing back holds the world's first sample from below the surface of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">asteroid</a>.</li><li>Studying this <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">space rock</a> can reveal new information about the evolution of the solar system and the origins of life on Earth.</li><li>Watch live coverage of the return below starting at 12 p.m. ET on Saturday.</li></ul><p>A Japanese spacecraft is set to return from its asteroid-blasting mission on Saturday. In a dramatic finale, the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft is expected to send at least 100 milligrams of alien space rock plummeting into the Australian outback.</p><p>The sample comes from asteroid Ryugu: a primitive, half-mile-wide rock that zips through our solar system up to 131 million miles (211 million kilometers) from the sun. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (<keyword id="280363" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="JAXA">JAXA</keyword>) launched Hayabusa-2 in 2014 with the goal of collecting the first sample of material from below an asteroid's surface.</p><p>The spacecraft first <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-spacecraft-touches-down-on-asteroid-to-get-samples-2019-2">landed</a> on Ryugu in February to collect shallow samples from the surface. But scientists knew that probing deeper could reveal more pure rock from the beginnings of our solar system, since that material hasn't been exposed to harsh radiation from the sun.</p><div type="image" title="hayabusa 2 landing asteroid ryugu sample collection" height="1080" width="1920" msid="79574451" hostid="261"></div><p>So in April 2019, Hayabusa-2 blasted a 33-foot crater into the asteroid using a copper plate and a box of explosives. That loosened rocks and exposed material below the surface. Three months later, in July 2019, the probe lowered itself to Ryugu once again and scooped up the debris.</p><div type="image" title="Hayabusa2 Ryuku asteroid landing" height="1000" width="1000" msid="79574452" hostid="261"></div><p>Now, the probe has almost completed the 5.5-million-mile (9-million-kilometer) journey home.</p><p>Sometime between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, the spacecraft will shoot a capsule containing the samples toward Earth.</p><p>A bright fireball will streak across the sky as the "treasure box," as <a href="https://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20201116_extMission/">JAXA</a> calls it, plummets through the atmosphere at 7.5 miles per second. About 6 miles above the ground, the capsule should deploy parachutes and drift to the desert floor of Woomera, Australia. Then it will send out a <a href="https://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20201204_ts4/">beacon</a> to lead JAXA's retrieval team to its location.</p><p>Hayabusa-2, meanwhile, will embark on an 11-year extended mission to rendezvous with another asteroid, called 1998 KY26.</p><h2>'Clues to the origin of life on Earth'</h2><p>Asteroids accumulated from the leftover crumbs of our early solar system, 4.5 billion years ago. Material that didn't make it into the planets coalesced. So what scientists find in those primitive space rocks can reveal a lot about the solar system's history.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid ryugu hayabusa-2 video gif" height="450" width="800" msid="79574453" hostid="261"></div><p>What's more, Ryugu is a C-type asteroid, which means it's rich with organic carbon molecules, water, and possibly amino acids - the building blocks for proteins that were essential to the evolution of life on Earth. Some theories posit that an asteroid first delivered amino acids to our planet.</p><p>"Organic materials are the origins of life on Earth, but we still don't know where they came from," Makoto Yoshikawa, a Hayabusa2 project mission manager, said in a briefing on Friday, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/04/japan-hayabusa2-asteroid-dust-ryugu">The Guardian</a>. "We are hoping to find clues to the origin of life on Earth by analyzing details of the organic materials brought back by Hayabusa2."</p><h2><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> and JAXA are each bringing home asteroid samples to share</h2><p>NASA sent its own spacecraft to an asteroid this year: Osiris-Rex (short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer). The probe <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">high-fived asteroid Bennu</a> on October 20, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-osiris-rex-probe-landing-on-asteroid-kicking-dust-2020-10">landing</a> on its surface for just six seconds to stir up dust. In that brief landing, it collected a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-sample-leaking-into-space-2020-10">whopping 2 pounds of sample</a>.</p><p>That spacecraft won't return with its bounty until 2023.</p><p>But combined, the samples from Osiris-Rex and Hyabusa-2 will provide the world's first comprehensive set of pristine asteroid material. NASA and JAXA have agreed to share bits of their samples with each other for scientific study.</p><p>Portions of both agencies' asteroid samples will also be stored for future research.</p><p>"These samples returned from Bennu will also allow future planetary scientists to ask questions we can't even think of today and to be able to use analysis techniques that aren't even invented yet," Lori Glaze, the director of NASA's Planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Division, said in a briefing after Osiris-Rex collected its samples.</p><p><strong>Watch JAXA's live coverage of its first asteroid-sample return, starting 12 p.m. ET on Saturday</strong></p>

A Japanese spacecraft is about to send a 'treasure box' of asteroid dust plummeting to Earth. Watch the sample return live.

As the coronavirus cases continue to rise in <keyword id="13126" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Maharashtra">Maharashtra</keyword>, state School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad has said schools will not reopen in the state before Diwali. Maharashtra has till now reported 15,17,434 COVID-19 cases and 40,040 deaths due to the disease. <br /><br />The Centre on March 16 announced closure of all educational institutions, including schools, colleges and universities, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. <br /><br />It has now allowed graded reopening of schools from October 15. <br /><br />Gaikwad, who recently recovered from COVID-19, said schools have been conducting virtual classes and teachers have been taking special classes for students in some areas. <br /><br />However, the challenge is to find a way to end the academic year and assess students, she said. <br /><br />"While we are exploring various options, it is clear that schools will not open before Diwali," Gaikwad said. <br /><br />According to senior officials in the state education department, reopening schools under the current circumstances is out of question, as there is no sign of the pandemic abating. <br /><br />State Higher and Technical Education Minister Uday Samant also said his department does not intend to reopen colleges until the COVID-19 situation is under control. <br /><br />"The situation is grim for students who wish to pursue higher studies abroad, as their future depends on our decision," he added. <br /><br />Even as the state government and bureaucracy mull over solutions, children and parents are worried as they seem to be caught in a quagmire. <br /><br />"I have taken an education loan and my parents are repaying it. If I don't get good grades in exams, how will I get a good job?" said Raviraj Humbe, an engineering student from <keyword id="2094" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pune">Pune</keyword>. <br /><br />There must be some technical solution for conducting exams and tests, he said. <br /><br />Meanwhile, education expert Kishore Darak suggested that the state government can club two or three educational years so that concerns of parents about academic loss can be addressed. <br /><br />While the safety of students is imperative, it is high time that the state comes up with a bipartisan approach towards education, he said. <br /><br />"The government must come up with a solution where local officials are authorised to take context-specific decisions like full or partial reopening of schools or alternate day scheduling of classes, among others," he said. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/nasa-cases-asteroid-bennu-ahead-of-snatch-and-grab-finds-six-new-secrets-including-a-possible-void-under-the-surface/slidelist/78577408.cms">NASA cases Asteroid Bennu ahead of snatch and grab — finds six new secrets, including a possible void under the surface</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/rbi-governor-wants-markets-to-keep-the-faith-but-traders-want-something-more/articleshow/78574663.cms">RBI Governor wants markets to keep the faith but traders want something more</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/tcs-beats-accenture-to-become-the-worlds-most-valuable-it-services-company/articleshow/78566487.cms"><strong>TCS beats Accenture to become the world’s most valuable IT services company — but this not the first time it has raced ahead</strong></a>

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NASA cases Asteroid Bennu ahead of snatch and grab — finds six new secrets, including a possible void under the surface

Prabhjote Gill

The asteroid NASA just landed on turns out to be hollow, with a large 'void' at its center. It may be spinning itself to death.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A NASA spacecraft just landed on an asteroid to suck up rocky dust to bring back to Earth. Here's how the mission works.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Japan has completed its 3-billion-mile mission to collect dust from an asteroid. Photos show the prize falling into Australia like a fireball.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A Japanese spacecraft is about to send a 'treasure box' of asteroid dust plummeting to Earth. Watch the sample return live.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Schools in Maharashtra not to reopen before Diwali, says education minister Gaikwad

PTI

Space 2021: All the Mars landings, eclipses, astronaut flights, rocket launches, and other big missions to look for this year

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Susie N…

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