Jan Wesner Childs
A piece of an asteroid collected in space by NASA careened down to Earth in a protective capsule and landed in the Utah desert Sunday.
Crews were set to pick it up and whisk it away to a nearby clean room. Upon inspecting the sample return capsule and surrounding landing zone, NASA officials confirmed the capsule was safe and unbreached.
Unlike when humans return to Earth from space, there was no weather call. But the landing team monitored winds and other conditions throughout the morning.
What is the NASA asteroid mission all about?
-A NASA spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Sept. 8, 2016. “It spent about two years traveling to the asteroid Bennu, an additional two years studying the asteroid, surveying its surface to try to figure out the best site to collect the sample from. It collected that sample in October of 2020," NASA scientist Giada Arney told weather.com in an interview Friday.
-OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid.
-The material collected from Bennu is expected to provide a window into the formation of the sun and planets 4.5 billion years ago. “We like to think about these asteroids as pristine time capsules that record the very early formation of our solar system," Arney said.
-The sample will be taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "About 25% of the sample will be sent to science teams around the world," Arney said. "But about 75% of it will remain in storage for future generations of scientists who might be asking questions that we can't even think of today."
The role of weather in Sunday's landing:
-Bennu's mini fridge-size deployed a parachute to slow its descent before it hit Earth. That made winds a potential concern.
-Planners also had to take rain into consideration. If the ground were to get too wet from late-summer monsoons, the landing zone could have turned into a mess of sloppy mud that would make recovery of the capsule more difficult. The landing narrator mentioned there was some mud present, which made for a softer landing.
-Weather balloons flew up to about 60,000 feet in the days before the landing to capture data including temperature, humidity and wind. Those measurements were to help narrow down a more specific landing spot on the vast Utah Test and Training Range.
Weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman said Friday:
-Fortunately, the weather looks great for the landing in the desert of western Utah.
-Showers and thunderstorms earlier this week will be gone by this weekend as high pressure builds in.
-We expect south to southeast winds around 10 mph on Sunday, probably not strong enough to pose any major problems for the parachute landing.
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Weather.com reporter Jan Childs covers breaking news and features related to weather, space, climate change, the environment and everything in between.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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