Why a NASA Spacecraft Plans to Chase an Asteroid

                For the next two years, NASA’s latest robotic spacecraft will be chasing down an asteroid near Earth in the hopes of scooping up come of the most primordial bits of the solar system. The mission for the spacecraft, Osiris-Rex, is simple: Fly to an asteroid m grab some of the rock and bring it back to Earth, where scientists will study some of the pristine ingredients that went into the making of the solar system, including possible the building blocks of life. What was that beginning organic material like?

                Once off the ground, Osiris-Rex will be aiming to get close to the asteroid Bennu. It’s 500 meter size, about the height of the Empire State Building. Scientists believe that it is a conglomeration of leftovers, largely unchanged over the last 4.5 billion years. It’s time capsule from the earliest stages of solar system formation. Osiris-Rex will survey Bennu for more than a year to select the site where it well grabs the sample. The goal is to collect at least a couple of ounces of material. After departing Bennu in 2021, Osiris-Rex will pass by Earth in September 2023, dropping off a capsule with the samples.

                A Japanese mission, Hayabusa 2, will similarly collect sample from another carbon rich asteroid, but the Osiris-Rex scientists view the missions as complementary, not redundant. Researcher is particularly interested in gleaning information about organic molecules like amino acids, the building clocks of proteins that are known to float in outer space. Scientists hope that waterlogged minerals in the sample could tell whether the water in Earth’s oceans came from asteroids