Nasa to throw chunks of ‘1,600ft doomsday asteroid’ Bennu at remote US location in two days
NASA is bringing pieces of an asteroid to Earth to try and get a better understanding of it.
The asteroid is called Bennu and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was launched in 2016 to get in orbit with it so it can grab samples.
“Studying these organic molecules might help us understand what organics were around in the early solar system that could have seeded life on Earth.”
Japan also launched a spacecraft to an asteroid to study its material and the NASA scientists want to compare the asteroid dust from each asteroid to get a better understanding of the history of the solar system.
“Let’s say you are a visitor to Earth, and you want to learn all about Earth’s geologic history, so you pick up one rock – you’re never going to be able to learn that,” says Thompson.
“Going to more than one different asteroid really opens up a whole new world to really understand the diversity of material that was around 4.5 billion years ago”, around the time when the solar system formed.