PIC After struggling for months, NASA has finally cracked open the canister storing its dirt sample scooped off the surface of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid.

Launched in September 2016, the spacecraft flew to its target, the asteroid Bennu, and spent a couple of years studying the cosmic rock. Scientists eventually found a perfect spot to sample Bennu's regolith, and directed OSIRIS-REx to extend its 3.4-metre-long robotic arm and eject a puff of air. It then captured loose material disturbed from the surface into its Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head.

This sample capsule was sent off to Earth, landing in a desert in Utah in September 2023. Soon after NASA tried to pry it open, but couldn't loosen two out of 35 fasteners, preventing the eggheads from opening the canister for months. Now, they have finally managed to solve the issue using multi-part tools made out of non-magnetic stainless steel to finish the job. 

"Our engineers and scientists have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months to not only process the more than 70 grams of material we were able to access previously, but also design, develop, and test new tools that allowed us to move past this hurdle," Eileen Stansbery, division chief for Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science at NASA, previously said in a statement.

The canister has to be opened in a special sterile box to keep the asteroid sample pristine and prevent any contamination. Next, scientists will remove the round metal collar enclosing the material and transfer it into trays, which will be photographed, weighed, packaged, presumably studied, and stored. NASA has collected more regolith than the 60 grams it aimed for, and will store some of the samples in pristine condition for analysis by future boffins with more advanced kit. 

The asteroid sample also includes dust and rocks up to about one centimetre in size. Initial analyses showed that Bennu contains water and carbon, which suggests that space rocks could have delivered the right chemical compounds needed to kickstart life on Earth by striking our planet billions of years ago. Scientists believe these ingredients could have been the precursors to create DNA.

Although the OSIRIS-REx mission is over, the spacecraft is still going strong and is flying toward its new target asteroid: 99942 Apophis. The space rock made headlines when astronomers predicted there was a chance it could hit Earth in 2029. The date for a potential collision was later revised to 2068, and then pushed back beyond the next 100 years. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/01/23/osirisrex_asteroid_sample/