NASA can finally touch Earth’s ‘rarest’ rock

Two tiny screws nearly ruined the end of NASA’s seven-year space mission to the asteroid Bennu.

But after more than three months of hard work, engineers finally succeeded in prying off the lid of the canister containing a large amount of asteroid rock and dust. To remove the stuck top, they created and tested new tools that could safely unscrew the fasteners without damaging the precious specimens.

Andrew Ryan, a co-investigator on the NASA mission, said that so far the science team has only seen grainy cell phone photos of the samples, but better photos are expected to emerge next week.

“We were all really happy with what we saw inside,” Ryan told Mashable.

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NASA’s $800 million OSIRIS-Rex mission (short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Safe Regolith Explorer) launched a spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2016. A robotic spaceship. When it descended from an altitude of 63,000 meters, it completed a flight of 4 billion miles. On September 24, 2023, it arrived in a remote desert in Utah, several miles above the earth.

OSIRIS-Rex is the first U.S. mission to retrieve asteroid samples and bring them back to Earth. Not since the Apollo moon rocks collected between 1969 and 1972 has NASA brought back space memorabilia on this scale.

Bennu was chosen for this mission because it is full of carbon, meaning it may contain the chemical origins of life. The likelihood of it hitting Earth in the next century is also very small. Understanding the asteroid could help future efforts to deflect it, if necessary. Bennu is also considered a convenient asteroid destination because it crosses Earth’s orbit around the sun every few years, making it easier to reach than some other asteroids.

Asteroid debris covers the bottom of the OSIRIS-Rex sample tank.
Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebers

Using the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft, the team saw so-called “hydrothermal deposits” on Bennu, which they believe may have appeared early in the solar system’s history.

These long veins of salty material may indicate the presence of hydrothermal systems similar to those found at Earth’s mid-ocean ridges. It’s an interesting environment where geologists believe our planet’s prebiotic chemistry may have begun. This material did not appear in the Japanese Ryugu asteroid sample that flew back to Earth in 2020, nor in any meteorites found on Earth.

That’s why Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in September: “This is the rarest thing we’ve ever had on Earth.”

Scientists paused efforts to open the sample container in mid-October after they realized that two of the 35 fasteners could not be removed using tools approved for use inside the OSIRIS-Rex glove box.

To prevent sample contamination, NASA management teams have strict rules about what can go inside the glove box. Only about 15 materials are approved, such as stainless steel, aluminum and glass. The use of motors, computers and electrical circuits is strictly prohibited.

“It’s the rarest thing we’ve ever had on Earth.”

On the right side of the image, fragments of asteroid Bennu are visible on top of the sample collector.
Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebersold

After encountering this problem, NASA immediately began building new tools. Two of these were developed using a specific grade of surgical non-magnetic stainless steel – the hardest metal approved for use in the original nursing glove box.

“These new tools also need to function within the tight confines of a glove box, limiting their height, weight and potential arcing motion,” OSIRIS-Rex curator Nicole Lunning said in a statement. The planning team showed impressive resilience and did an incredible job removing these stubborn fasteners.”

Scientists have cleaned up some of the dust and rock fragments that leaked into the outer container for analysis, and they weighed nearly 2.5 ounces, which exceeded NASA’s goal. Some are shipped to institutions around the world for research.

Soon they will know the total amount of Bennu material they have captured by weighing the remaining contents.