Scientists just opened the lid to NASA’s asteroid sample canister::“There is some black dust-like material that’s visible. We’re hoping that’s from Bennu.”
Green smoke in the shape of a skull escapes
Huh. Thats a bit concerning.
continues
After 10,000 years I’m free! It’s time to conquer Earth!
Cue guitar riff
Alpha! Rita escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!
This unlocked a forgotten core memory.
10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck.
“We didn’t expect the stripper to pop out, but we’re not complaining.”
TLDR it’s just the canister, the actual sample is still locked for another week or so
They really didn’t do a good job of making that clear until the very end of the article.
Intentionally
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, has waited nearly 20 years to get his hands on pristine specimens from an asteroid, which he says is a key to unlocking answers to mysteries about the origin of life on Earth.
But there’s little question the dust grains visible immediately after scientists opened the lid to the canister are from asteroid Bennu, where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured rocks during a touch-and-go landing in 2020.
The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) mothership released the capsule to plunge into the atmosphere while it fired its thrusters to maneuver on a trajectory to head back into the Solar System for an extended mission to visit another asteroid.
It then traveled to a specially built super-clean curation facility at the space center, which is also home to the collection of Moon rocks brought back on NASA’s Apollo missions more than 50 years ago.
That will require the lab team in Houston to remove the TAGSAM sampling mechanism from its restraint inside the canister, which protected it for the journey back to Earth like a nested doll.
The real treasure is inside TAGSAM, which we’re not going to get access to until probably late next week, and that is going to be a very deliberative process to figure out what is the nature of that collection, and how do we fairly distribute it to our international partners, to the science team for OSIRIS-REx, and also preserve the long-term integrity for future researchers."
The original article contains 886 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Andromeda strain
They have samples from the Andromeda system? 🤔 /s
What an incredible accomplishment. It would be fascinating to learn something we never thought imaginable through this mission.
Why spent a lot of effort bringing down samples from Bennu when that asteroid will go down to earth on its own in 159 years? /s
do you want space germs? because that’s how you get space germs!
If you see NASA scientists become emotionless, better get the he’ll out of town.
On the other hand it might be hard to tell.
Every NASA scientist being interviewed about this has been excited as hell. Being into science doesn’t make you an emotionless robot. Science is dope.
Yes. Dope.
You missed the point. It’s fine though, apparently you’re in good company.
I heard opening it involved moving, rotating, unscrewing. That two feet of shining screw projected when suddenly, the lid fell off
The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said. But still they come.
Ulllaaaaa!
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN
TFW you can’t decide whether to make a Life or The Andromeda Strain reference.
Removed by mod
Read this as “Scientists just lied to open NASA’s asteroid canister”.
“We won’t open it, we swear. [Lie]”
