Technology

NASA collected a sample from an Asteroid for the first time - here is why its matter

#6 will surprise you!

Oh sure, I've seen The Andromeda Strain. I know how this works.

Oh cool, it's finally back! I remember when it collected the sample, can't wait to hear about all the stuff they find in the coming weeks and months

I have to criticize the article's title. They should have said "NASA's first time" or something that more strongly binds "first time" to NASA and not to asteroid sample collection. The title sounds, to me, like it's trying to say this is the first time this has happened when, halfway through the article, it points out that Japan's Hayabusa missions have done this twice before.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in 2016, has collected as much as several hundred grams of asteroid material, which could help scientists understand the earliest stages of the solar system.

“The really precise navigation required to orbit Bennu and to touch down and collect our sample, we were under a meter away from our target,” Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager, said in a pre-landing briefing.

This prevents any of Earth’s atmosphere from entering it as it is shipped to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where the canister will be opened for the first time so the sample can be analyzed.

Bennu, the asteroid from which OSIRIS-REx collected its sample, is thought to be made up of material that is around 4.5 billion years old, making it a potential time capsule from the earliest stages of the solar system.

By a fortunate chance of orbital dynamics, it will be able to rendezvous with this asteroid — one of the most famous in the solar system, because it will come close to Earth in the next few years — and study it.

As for the sample from asteroid Bennu, that will be taken to a special facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where work can begin to understand the chemistry of this precious commodity.

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I love space exploration and the furthering of our knowledge and understanding about the universe, but in this case I was curious how they'd justify this mission "mattering" in their article, given the current crumbling state of our civilisation, and the very specific, pointed choice of wording in the title.

I suppose it's down to perspective. I adore space and love our probes and what we learn (Voy 2 is my fave! ❤️), but in the big picture I wouldn't say this stuff matters, so much as it enriches our culture and understanding of our place in the universe.

Given that we are living in a time period where there is a deep, decades long decline in society into the now undeniable Cost of Living Crisis (not to mention the austerity crisis, brexit crisis, global warming crisis, mass extinction crisis, employment crisis, stagnant wage crisis, food crisis, full scale fascist invasion on the continent, etc), I don't think this mission "matters" very much, when held up against any of those things. It's about priorities and perspective, I suppose.

I still love it, I love what humans do, their thirst for knowledge, their exploration of the stars. But I wouldn't say it matters in current context, given how we are all suffering (well, except the upper middle and ruling classes, I suppose, they're doing fine), and how that suffering is set to only get worse in the coming decades.

This mission is super cool and awesome, but in the real lives of myself, my family, friends, colleagues, people around me, I don't think it particularly matters. It's not going to have any impact on us, basically.

I hope that doesn't sound overly pessimistic 😅 I loooove space ✨ The title just bugged me, and the article didn't justify it, haha.