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Tag: Space science

Secrets Of Bennu Asteroid Revealed

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A preliminary study of the material brought back from the 4.5-billion-year-old Asteroid Bennu shows that the black asteroid dust is made up of carbon and clay minerals rich in water. This provides evidence that asteroids were responsible for helping start life on Earth.

Also read, Checkout India’s Spacecraft That Will Take Humans To Space

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news.sky.com

Some scientists believe that asteroids like Bennu could have been responsible for bringing important materials to Earth – like water to help kick-start life around 4.5-bil-2 lion-years ago. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft had left the Earth in 2016. It reached Asteroid Bennu and collected samples in 2020. It then took nearly three years for the NASA spacecraft to travel back to the Earth and drop off the sample at a military base in the US.

Watch Full Video On, Over the Moon – Chandrayaan -3, India’s Successful Lunar Mission

NASA Capsule Returns To Earth With Asteroid Dust

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Recently, a capsule carrying samples of a distant asteroid, collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed safely in the desert in Utah (US). These samples are the largest amount of asteroid material ever returned to Earth and were taken from a mountain-sized asteroid named Bennu. Scientists believe that this sample could help them answer the age-old question: where do we come from?

Also Read, Ground Breaking – NASA Makes Oxygen On Mars

OSIRIS-REx was launched in 2016, and spent two years travelling through space to reach Bennu. The goal of the mission was to collect samples from the asteroid.

aljazeera.com
aljazeera.com

Bennu is over 320 million km away from the Earth. When the spacecraft reached the asteroid, It began to orbit it. Finally, in 2020, the spacecraft touched the surface of the asteroid for the several seconds, using a special arm to blow air and suck up dust and pebbles. Since then, the OSIRIS-REx has been heading back towards the Earth. The Capsule has been taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center In Houston, Texas, where a very special lab has been set up to handle the asteroid sample.

System, and how life might have begun on the Earth. Scientists will look for chemicals that are important to life, such as amino acids – the building blocks of proteins.

What is asteroid Bennu?

Asteroid Bennu is a very big mass of rock weighing around 78 billion kg, in space. According to NASA, the asteroid probably broke off a much bigger one around 2 billion years ago. Because Bennu looks so similar to asteroids found on Earth scientists think it could contain some of the universe’s oldest ma-terials. This is why NASA is so keen to investigate it – it could help scientists find out more about where we come from.

nasa.gov
nasa.gov

Watch Full Video, #IndiaOnMoon : Over the Moon – Chandrayaan -3, India’s Successful Lunar Mission

Is There A Mystery Planet In Our Solar System?

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Researchers may have discovered proof of a new planet similar to Earth.

A team of astronomers in Japan, including those from the country’s National Astronomical Observatory, believe that there is an unknown planet that may be circling the Sun in an orbit past Neptune. As of now, we know for sure that there are eight planets in our solar system. Their order from nearest the Sun to furthest away goes: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Satum, Uranus, Neptune and then a possible Planet Nine.

Also read, Everything You Need To Know About The Full Moon – The Blue Moon

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The published research suggests that this possible Planet Nine, could be hiding in the Kuiper Belt. The researchers found that the way that some of the objects in the Kuiper Belt behave suggests there could be a small planet among them. The astronomers think this new planet could be three times as big as Earth but it would not have life as we know it, because the temperatures would be too cold. The team say finding this new discovery near the Kuiper Belt, could lead to finding more possible planets.

Word Check

According to NASA, the Kuiper Belt is a doughnut shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune – the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system.

science.nasa.gov

Did You Know?

For more than 70 years, Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet in our solar system. However, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet orbits the sun just like other planets, but it is smaller.

space.com

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