2023-11-02 05:38:00
(Xinhua file photo: Atlas V401 rocket with Lucy spacecraft Take off from Launch Site No. 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. US state of Florida, Oct. 16, 2021) LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) — NASA reports that the Lucy spacecraft is scheduled to The flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh on Wednesday (Nov. 1) marks the first close approach of the asteroid. The flyby will allow the Lucy mission to test its instruments. As for preparations for a visit to the Trojan asteroid group, which orbits the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter, during the next decade, NASA has determined that the Dinkinesh asteroid is less than one kilometer wide. It orbits the Sun in an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The Lucy spacecraft has been following the asteroid Dinkinesh since September 3. Asteroid Dinkinesh will be the first of 10 asteroids that the Lucy spacecraft will visit during its 12-year spaceflight, the main goal of the Lucy mission. which was released on Oct. 16, 2021, is a survey of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid family. This is a group of small objects orbiting the Sun that have never been observed before.
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#NASAs #Lucy #spacecraft #flies #asteroid #time
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Free Serialized Manga on Kadokawa’s Platform: ‘People Call That Blue God, Hope, or Sky’
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
2023-10-30 13:40:00
Works currently signed and serialized on Kadokawa’s platform “Kakukakusha”. “People Call That Blue God, Hope, or Sky” will be available for free in November. Readers who are interested in this work but have not yet read it, please seize the time. Thank you very much if you are willing to purchase chapter support following transferring the fee! ! To read please click:
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#serialization #Japanese #version #Touch #Blue #completed #Chinese #version #transferred #public #soonKadokawa #Awardkadokado #square #vocus
NASA doesn’t have the right screwdriver to open the box containing the fragments
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
2023-10-24 17:20:09
NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold NASA doesn’t have the right screwdriver to open the box that contains the fragments of the asteroid Bennu
NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold
NASA doesn’t have the right screwdriver to open the box that contains the fragments of the asteroid Bennu
SPACE – Imagine the frustration: a container of asteroid dust is in your hands, following a journey of 200 million kilometers in space, an incredible recovery maneuver to take on board the precious pieces of extraterrestrial rock, a return to Earth too perilous as the going but successful… And you lack the right screwdriver to open it. Here is what has just happened (slightly exaggerating) to the American Space Agency.
On October 20, NASA published on his blog an update of the operation to open the precious cargo of the Osiris-Rex probe. The machine, launched in 2016, collected pieces of the asteroid Bennu using a telescopic arm. On October 21, 2020, the probe touched the ground of the asteroid for almost 6 seconds, the time to tear off a few fragments. An extraordinary success.
Since its return to Earth at the end of September 2023, the probe has already surprised experts: even outside the container, a small dose of space dust was already visible. Recovered and put under the microscope, it has for the moment demonstrated what astronomers had calculated from Earth: Bennu is made partly of water and carbon, essential pieces to the puzzle of the creation of life here on earth.
Wrong tool in the glove box
But the piece de resistance remains to come. It is inside the container that the bulk of Osiris-Rex’s catch is found, the 250 grams still isolated from the world by a box. But this is where there is a slight hiccup. The box in question, called TAGSAM, is so well sealed, and the precautions to reopen it are so great, that it remains closed for the moment.
“After several attempts, the team discovered that two of the thirty-five screws used on the TAGSAM might not be removed with the tools in Osiris-Rex’s glove box.”, thus recognized NASA. But what is this “glove box” ? This is a larger container, filled with nitrogen, into which the stubborn box was transferred. A type of aquarium, completely airtight, which should prevent the fragments from being contaminated by the earth’s atmosphere when they are recovered.
NASA The famous airtight glove box.
NASA
The famous airtight glove box.
To summarize, NASA did not place in this “glove box” the adjustable wrench needed to settle the score of two recalcitrant screws… The kind of thing that gets annoying following such an ambitious space adventure! Fortunately, this setback does not dampen the good mood of the American space agency, which expects to quickly find the right tool, even if there is a certain impatience.
NASA explains that it still recovered part of it “by sliding a pair of pliers inside” from the already unsealed area of the lid, a bit like trying to extract the contents of a poorly ajar can with a teaspoon. It’s time for new, more efficient screwdrivers to arrive in the glove box.
Also see on Le HuffPost :
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#NASA #doesnt #screwdriver #open #box #fragments
NASA reveals the contents of the sample from the asteroid Bennu
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
2023-10-12 02:00:20
The asteroid Bennu begins to reveal its secrets. NASA began analyzing the contents of the sample brought back to Earth last month: it contains water and a lot of carbon, crucial elements in the formation of planet Earth.
Published on: 12/10/2023 – 04:00
4 mn
The sample from the asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA contains water and carbon in large quantities, the American space agency announced Wednesday, October 11. A discovery which should allow us to better understand whether asteroids actually brought to Earth the compounds that allowed the birth of life, as some scientists believe.
“Water and carbon molecules are exactly the kind of matter we wanted to find,” NASA boss Bill Nelson said at an event in Houston, Texas. “These are crucial elements in the formation of our own planet, and they will help us determine the origin of elements that might have led to life,” he added.
The first images of the largest asteroid sample ever brought to Earth have been projected: dust and blackened pieces.
“We chose the right asteroid!”
The Osiris-Rex mission took this sample in 2020 from Bennu, an asteroid 500 meters in diameter then located more than 300 million kilometers from Earth. The capsule containing the precious cargo successfully returned to Earth just over two weeks ago, landing in the American desert.
Since then, the meticulous process of opening the capsule has taken place in a white room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. According to initial analyses, this is the richest space sample in carbon ever reported on Earth.
“We chose the right asteroid!” rejoiced Daniel Glavin, scientist at NASA, speaking of “a dream for astrobiologists”. “Carbon is essential for life on Earth, we are all made of carbon,” he explained. By hitting the Earth, asteroids like Bennu might have “seed” our planet.
Water is present on Bennu trapped in what we call hydrated minerals. “We think that’s how water got to Earth,” said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal scientist. “The reason why Earth is a habitable world, why we have oceans, lakes, rivers, is because these hydrated minerals…landed on Earth between 4 and 4.5 billion years ago years.”
“Bonus” material
Before the capsule landed, the US space agency estimated it had managed to pick up around 250 grams of material from Bennu – far more than two previous Japanese missions to other asteroids. NASA, for whom such a maneuver was a first, will still have to confirm this estimate. Perhaps within “two weeks”, when NASA teams have managed to apprehend the entire sample, Dante Lauretta told AFP.
Because the operation to open the capsule had some surprises in store. Due to the abundance of material found outside the collection mechanism itself, the main sample has not yet been opened.
“We’re taking our time to methodically process and properly care for each piece of Bennu,” said Eileen Stansbery, chief scientist at the Johnson Space Center.
The happy surprise of this “bonus” material can be explained by an incident that occurred when the sample was taken: just following the operation, NASA realized that the valve in the collection compartment was not able to to reclose. The cargo had managed to be secured by being transferred as planned into the capsule, but because of this leak, scientists expected to find residue outside the compartment.
The material already recovered was entrusted to a rapid analysis team, in order to obtain a first idea of the composition of Bennu, revealed on Wednesday. The sample was screened using a scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction, and infrared measurements.
Future generations
Over the next six months, a NASA team will establish “a catalog of samples”, explained Francis McCubbin, deputy head of this team. Scientists from around the world will be able to “request material to study Bennu in their own laboratory,” he stressed.
The majority of the sample will be preserved to be studied by future generations, with new, more efficient instruments and to answer new scientific questions. This is what was done for the lunar rocks brought back during the Apollo program.
Bennu’s analysis might also prove very directly useful in the future. There is a small chance (1 in 2,700 chance) that the asteroid will hit Earth in 2182, a collision that would be catastrophic. Knowing its exact composition might thus help to better understand its trajectory, and perhaps even, if necessary one day, to calculate the impact necessary to deviate it.
With AFP
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#NASA #reveals #contents #sample #asteroid #Bennu