2023-12-27 09:39:49
Since November, the Center for Research on Heteroepitaxy and its Applications has hosted 100 mg of sample collected by NASA on the asteroid Bennu. Research carried out on these fragments should make it possible to learn more about the origins of the solar system.
A piece of an asteroid in Valbonne, in the Alpes-Maritimes. The Center for Research on Heteroepitaxy and Its Applications (CHREA), a laboratory under the supervision of the CNRS and the University of Côte d’Azur, welcomed November 9th 2023 a 100 mg sample collected from the asteroid Bennu. It is 4.5 billion years old and located at an orbital distance from the sun of 168 million kilometers, according to Nasa.
The American space agency collected this material during its Osiris-Rex mission which brought back the sample at the end of September. NASA has distributed fractions to several laboratories around the world, including CHREA.
A chance”
This is an important event in several ways. First, the reported quantity makes it “the largest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth,” a stated in October NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
Then, according to Patrick Michel, astrophysicist and research director at the CNRS, “it’s quite extraordinary, because it’s already very rare that we can get samples from an asteroid on site.” “In general, we analyze meteorites, which are fragments of asteroids once they arrive on earth,” continues the scientist from the Côte d’Azur Observatory.
“This time, we are going to look for them” and “we are lucky to have access to around a hundred milligrams of these samples”, he enthuses on BFMTV.
Research into the origins of the Earth
Research carried out on these fragments should make it possible to observe a “time capsule which offers us an in-depth insight into the origins of our solar system”, explained Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of Osiris-Rex, in October. They could thus help to understand whether asteroids brought life to Earth, according to Patrick Michel.
“The first analyzes show that we have carbon, organic matter and this water that we are looking for, because (…) that at the end of the formation of the Earth, the scenarios tell us that it there were many impacts and these impacts were able to provide the water that makes our oceans and the organic matter that allowed life to emerge,” he explained on BFMTV.
How to deflect asteroids
These samples should also make it possible to “know how asteroids are made”, underlined Wednesday December 27 on BFMTV Michel Tognini, French astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA). In October, NASA revealed that its first analyzes showed “evidence of high carbon and water content”.
This knowledge is important because “one day, we may have the obligation and the duty to intercept an asteroid to deviate it from the Earth’s trajectory since we have been very often impacted by asteroids”, explains Michel Tognini. “And so these impacts will continue into the future,” notes the astronaut.
“Our duty to us, Earthlings, is to do everything so that we can protect ourselves from these impacts which can be fatal and extremely harmful to our ecology,” he adds.
Enough to understand how the arrival of this small sample represents an important event for Nice researchers. “The delivery man didn’t really understand why he was being filmed when he arrived, he had no idea what he was carrying,” reported the Figaro Vincent Guigoz, post-doctoral researcher working on the project.
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