(Washington) NASA began opening the capsule of the Osiris-Rex mission that collected pieces of asteroid, and announced Tuesday that it had found “black dust and debris” inside, even before reaching the bulk of the sample.
Seven years after takeoff, the capsule landed on Earth on Sunday, in the American desert, after a high-risk maneuver.
NASA estimates that it managed to collect around 250 grams of material from the asteroid Bennu in 2020 – the largest asteroid sample ever collected.
At the time of this operation, the space agency realized that the flap of the collection compartment was not able to close. But the cargo had finally managed to be secured by being transferred as planned to the capsule.
Because of this leak, however, scientists expected that residue would be found outside the collection compartment, in the box where it was placed.
A first lid was opened on Tuesday, in an airtight chamber at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
NASA teams then immediately “found black dust and debris,” NASA announced, without saying whether they were indeed pieces of an asteroid.
This material will be analyzed, and the “careful process of disassembly” of the collection compartment will take place, “in order to access the main sample inside” it, wrote the space agency.
A press conference is planned for October 11 to “unveil the sample”.
Analyzing the composition of the asteroid Bennu should allow scientists to better understand the formation of the solar system and how the Earth became habitable.