280 million kilometers away, after taking the last photo, the spacecraft with precious samples returned to Earth
Spaceship with precious samples returns to Earth
Speaking of asteroid sampling, you may still vaguely remember that at the end of 2020, Japan's Hayabusa-2 probe successfully returned to Earth with a sample of the "Ryugu" asteroid. From departure to landing on Earth, the flight mileage of the Hayabusa-2 probe Accumulated more than 5.2 billion kilometers. In addition to the Hayabusa2 probe, another unmanned spacecraft has also completed asteroid sampling, that is, the OSIRIS-Rex probe.
OSIRIS-Rex detector
Compared with Mars probes and lunar probes, the OSIRIS-Rex probe may be slightly less famous, and many friends may not know the existence of this probe. The OSIRIS-Rex probe is an asteroid probe launched by NASA in September 2016. Its mission is to complete asteroid sampling and return to Earth. After nearly 2 years of flight, it reached the vicinity of the Bennu asteroid in December 2018, and flew around the Bennu asteroid. On December 10, 2018, the OSIRIS-Rex probe found that there are traces of water on the surface of the Bennu asteroid , the water is bound to the clay of the Bennu asteroid.
Since the OSIRIS-Rex probe needs to sample the surface of the Bennu asteroid, the probe needs to complete the landing on the asteroid. Sampling the surface of an asteroid more than 100 million kilometers away from the earth is not an easy task. In addition, the Bennu asteroid is a special case. There are many small fragments on its surface, and these small fragments will fly out. Scientists Worrying that these scattered small debris may cause the OSIRIS-Rex probe to malfunction, so before landing, scientists selected multiple pre-selected landing areas for the OSIRIS-Rex probe, and the OSIRIS-Rex probe also made multiple landings Preview the simulation.
After many rehearsals, the Osiris-REx probe successfully reached the surface of the Bennu asteroid in October 2020, and its robotic arm collected some asteroid samples on the surface of the Bennu asteroid. Although the process from contacting the surface of the asteroid to grabbing the sample was relatively smooth, the robotic arm grabbed too many samples, and some rock samples were relatively large, which affected the sealing chamber to seal up the samples, but later some asteroid samples were scattered. into space, so this is not a big problem. NASA researchers estimate that the probe may have brought back 400 grams of samples, including some rocks.
After completing the sampling, the Osiris-REx probe did not return to Earth immediately, but continued to orbit the asteroid for a while. On May 10, 2021, the main engine of the OSIRIS-REx probe opened at full throttle for 7 minutes, leaving the Bennu asteroid at a speed of nearly 1,000 kilometers per hour, carrying precious samples from about 287 million to Earth. The Bennu asteroid, which is kilometers away, begins to return to the earth. It is expected to eject the sample capsule when it passes by the earth on September 24, 2023. The sample capsule will fall in the desert of Utah in the western United States. The entire return flight distance is expected to reach 2.3 billion kilometers. .
Some friends may find it a little strange. The distance between this asteroid and our earth is only about 300 million kilometers. Why does the spacecraft need to fly more than 2 billion kilometers to return to the earth? This is because the spacecraft does not fly in a straight line in space. The flight mileage of Hayabusa 2, which has successfully brought back samples of the "Ryugu" asteroid, has reached a total of 5.2 billion kilometers, and the distance between this asteroid and the earth is only 340 million kilometers.
Take one last photo before returning
The Osiris-REx probe has been flying with the Bennu asteroid for several years. The Osiris-REx probe has also taken pictures of the Bennu asteroid many times before. Before leaving the Bennu asteroid and starting to return to Earth, the Osiris-REx probe The Rees-REx probe took the last image of the Bennu asteroid. In this photo, the Bennu asteroid we see has a "crescent" shape, that is, one side looks brighter and the other side is dark.
Now the spacecraft is flying back toward the earth, and it will take more than 2 years to reach the earth. When the samples return to the earth, scientists will analyze these samples. The Bennu asteroid is more than 4 billion years old and contains materials from the early days of the solar system, so scientists hope to understand the planet formation process more than 4 billion years ago and the origin of life on Earth by studying the Bennu asteroid. It is believed that scientists are now very much looking forward to getting these precious rock samples as soon as possible.
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