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[slate]
OSIRIS-REx is an incredibly
exciting mission to actually go out to an asteroid. So the spacecraft
is on it's way to an asteroid called Bennu. And Bennu is actually
a half a kilometer across. What's going to happen is that we're going to out to this asteroid
and study it for more than a year and find a really, really great place to take a sample.
Now the scale of Bennu is about a half a kilometer across. So it's
not the largest of the asteroids, but it's a pretty good sized one. And OSIRIS-REx will actually
orbiting around it and then taking a sample and eventually returning that sample to Earth.
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So there's a very exciting thing happening
a little bit before 1:00 p.m. Eastern daylight time today and that is that the satellite
is actually on a path to get on a close approach around the Earth and
it's actually go closest approach about 11,000 miles over Antarctica and the
gravity of the Earth is actually going to slingshot the spacecraft around. And
the important thing about this is this is get us at the right angle to actually approach and eventually
encounter the asteroid. So this is something that saves us time as well as rocket
fuel to get out to the asteroid using the Earth's own gravity to alter
the path and slingshot us to the asteroid.
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Well the thing that is so intriguing to me about asteroids is that they really are time capsules.
They actually are samples of what the solar system was like billions of years ago.
Asteroids are small bodies that never got made into something big like a planet.
So anything that made into a planet, got melted down, got changed.
There were lots of things that went on. Asteroids are pristine. Nothing
altered them for billions of years. So when you go out and take a sample
of an asteroid you have in your hands a real sample of what the solar system
was like billions of years ago. What were the conditions, what was the chemistry like?
What can you learn about the formation of our own planet and our selves by looking at what the solar system
was like billions of years ago. And this sample is incredibly
scientific important. I think people will be studying it for generations to come.
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Well this is a really exciting day, we're looking forward to this. After
orbiting around Bennu for more than a year we're going to select a site that actually looks good
We're actually going to go down and do a little high five maneuver. Just kind of lightly
touch the surface of this asteroid and there will be some vacuums basically that actually vacuum
up material from the asteroid itself. We hope to get somewhere between 60 grams and
up to a kilogram and then that material will be put in a capsule
and actually sent back to Earth. It'll parachute through our atmosphere and land somewhere near
the great Salt Lake of Utah. So this is actually our chance to get our hands on
a real sample of the early solar system. It'll be hopefully the largest
sample return since the Apollo program ended in the 1972.
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Well for me I have to say its that
what was the solar system like. One of the more intriguing possibilities is
that asteroids actually brought things like water and organic chemistry, the chemistry
that we're based on to Earth in the first place. So when you go out and see
what it was like billions of years ago, is that going to give us a better window into how
we got here. How life started on Earth. Are some of the chemicals
in your body, some of the water in your body today did they originally get delivered to Earth
by asteroids? Asteroids may be a lot closer to you than you think.
They may not be just rocks that are millions of miles away, you may have a little bit of asteroid
material in you right now and I really want to know more about that story.
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Well to find out more about all the ways that NASA studies
asteroids, find out about this mission, about when we're going to do our sample return to go
www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex.