In the two and a half months following the safe landing of NASA’s inaugural asteroid sample-return mission on Earth, technicians have meticulously extracted over 70 grams of asteroid dust and pebbles from the spacecraft’s canister exterior.
This quantity surpasses more than tenfold the amount ever retrieved from an asteroid, exceeding the threshold NASA had established for declaring the mission a success.
Notably, some of the gathered pebbles exhibit a perplexing combination of chemical elements, adding to the intrigue for researchers.
Despite these initial accomplishments, the mission has encountered a setback, Nature reported.
Recent revelations from researchers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, disclosed that two of the 35 screws securing the lid of the sample-return canister proved unyielding, hindering access to the remaining space rock.
Curators utilized tweezers to extract what was accessible, prompting NASA to manufacture new screwdrivers to overcome this obstacle and gain access to the valuable cargo that traversed billions of kilometers across the Solar System to and from the asteroid Bennu.
Written by B.C. Begley
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B.C. Begley 