Space Rocket Launched, Origins of Human Can Be Investigated

Aircraft designed to transport back samples from a faraway asteroid was launched last September 8, 2016. It will travel 510 million miles away from Earth and arrive in asteroid Bennu which is estimated to last at least 2 years.

Scientists discovered asteroid Bennu back in 1999 by the NASA-funded Linear asteroid survey. It has a measurement of 1650 feet across and 60 million tons by weight and is also said to be almost the size of the Empire State Building. Since experts are the intrigue of the size and composition and have the capability of going there they launched OSIRIS-Rex to gather samples from the asteroid. Not only that the racket will gather samples, it will also orbit and map the said asteroid and go back to earth seven years after.

An asteroid like Bennu is called "Primitive Asteroid" which formed over 4.5 billion years ago and does not change recognizably. Experts were hoping to analyze the organic material found in the asteroid and give them an inventory of materials which will lead them to the role in the origin of life on earth, and maybe elsewhere. The university of Arizona, Principal Investigator on the OSIRIS-Rex mission, Dante Lauretta, said that the mapping and sampling of the space rock can potentially hold the answer if where does human being come from, according to Lake County News.

If the mission is successful OSIRIS-Rex will bring back the canister which can hold less than five pounds of the sample which are the layer of heterogeneous superficial material covering solid rock called "regolith." The challenge now is that scientists must be delicate to control the craft that has to be 11 feet away from the surface. Not only that they have to control the circular disks which manage by the space craft's arms, once it touches the surface the nitrogen will blast then the sample can be blown-up inside the canister.

If careful movements will lead them to success it will be the largest amount of material taken and brought back to earth since the Apollo missions in the 1960's and the 1970's. In line, scientists are hoping for the complete mission to pass for them to partially investigate the origins of the earth reported by Digital Trends.