OSIRIS-REx is due to make its return to Earth on Sept. 24. Here's everything you need to know about the mission and what it may reveal about the beginning — and the potential end — of life on Earth.
On Sept. 24, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will come hurtling through Earth's atmosphere, carrying samples of the nearby,"potentially hazardous" asteroid Bennu.
After returning the samples to Earth, OSIRIS-REx is due to launch again in 2029 — this time, to the asteroid Apophis, another potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid laden with intriguing subsurface materials. Why is OSIRIS-REx important?The nudges provided to asteroids by the sun are known as the Yarkovsky effect. Named after the 19th-century engineer who first proposed it, the effect describes the fact that space rocks such as asteroids would, over long periods, absorb and emit enough momentum-carrying light to subtly change their orbits.
Asteroids like Bennu aren't important just for understanding how life on our planet could be destroyed but also for how it was born. Earth's water is older than the planet itself and was probably brought to our planet by asteroid and comet impacts. How did OSIRIS-REx land on Bennu?After launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in September 2016, OSIRIS-REx spent the next year performing a close flyby of Earth. At its closest approach over Antarctica, the spacecraft flew roughly 10,700 miles overhead — a maneuver that enabled it to slingshot itself to Bennu by increasing its speed by 8,451 mph .
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