Recent studies offer new insights on the materials present on the asteroid Bennu, days before the NASA OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is set to land on it on October 20.
Research on Bennu included variations in color and reflectance, as published in the journal Science, or topographical features on its surface, published in Science Advances.
Asteroid Bennu, designated 101955, was first discovered by NASA's Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) on September 11, 1999. Before the OSIRIS-REx reached the asteroid in December 2018, astronomers were limited in attempts to study Bennu - with mapping efforts described by National Geographic's Michael Greshko as limited to "the sizes of cities or states."
As OSIRIS-REx lands on Bennu's surface, it will pick up samples and carry it back to Earth, presumably by September 23.
The @OSIRISREx mission hits the jackpot in its science goals!
Results published today reveal asteroid Bennu contains well-preserved organic materials. This means it's likely the sample we collect can tell us about the origins of life in our solar system. https://t.co/W4fqwV7nUL pic.twitter.com/409F3bVnhj — NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) October 8, 2020
A Time Capsule From the Birth of the Solar System
As the OSIRIS-REx mission launched from the Cape Canaveral in 2016, it was accompanied by an event with appearances from special guests. One of the guests was Bill Nye, formerly television's "Science Guy" and the CEO of space exploration nonprofit Planetary Society. He said that the mission would advance mankind's knowledge of how the solar system started. The mission's name summarizes its mission: Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer.
"The reason there's so much interest in asteroids is a lot of them are very primitive, from when the Solar System formed, and they didn't change with wind and water, or weather like on Earth," said Amy Simon, planetary scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a previous interview with Inverse. Simon adds that these rocks are "still more pristine" than anything else in the Universe.
During the beginning of the Solar System, as the protoplanetary disk was just forming planets, debris, dust, and gas were flying around the Sun. Not all of these materials would become planets - some of them becoming satellites or ending up at the asteroid belt now found in the middle of Mars and Jupiter.
Up close and personal with Asteroid Bennu. So cool!
(full video here: https://t.co/qadfI4RcjD @NASA) pic.twitter.com/VfKFDmCvQ2 — Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) October 13, 2020
The Ingredients for Life on Earth
Because of Bennu's composition, scientists are especially interested to see if further studies on the asteroid would support the panspermia hypothesis - which posits that the ingredients for life can be found throughout the Universe and materials like asteroids brought them to Earth.
A 2018 study published at The Astronomical Journal, inquires into the implications of interstellar objects - like asteroids - for panspermia and supporting extraterrestrial life. It follows the discovery of the asteroid Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to have visited the Solar System. Researchers believed that there are other types of these objects, with some of them "ferrying" what amounts to building blocks of life.
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Researchers explained that objects traveling between velocities of 10 to 100 kilometers per second have the highest probabilities of carrying life. However, with enough time, even objects traveling faster, at above 1000 kilometers per second, can still develop significant chances of capture and panspermia.
As for the materials Bennu carries, NASA has recently found traces coming from another asteroid, Vesta, on Bennu's surface. The boulders vary from 5 to 14 feet wide on Bennu's southern hemisphere.
Check out more news and information about Asteroids in Science Times.
