After a decade and $1.2 billion, NASA reveals its Bennu haul: 121 grams | Top Vip News

After years of speculation, NASA finally revealed On Thursday, the entire asteroid sample returned from Bennu to Earth last fall: 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams).

To put that number in perspective, the total mass is just a little more than half a cup of sugar or a box of 100 paperclips. It’s about the same mass as a small avocado and you can’t even spread it on toast.

So in a sense, it’s a pretty small sample. Especially considering the lengths NASA and its partners went to recover it. The space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center worked with the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin to build the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft for $800 million. It was launched in September 2016 on an Atlas V rocket, which cost an additional $183.5 million. And as it crisscrossed the inner Solar System and back, NASA has spent an additional $200 million on mission operations.

A can of tuna

Altogether, NASA has spent $1.2 billion and the better part of a decade to recover a volume of asteroid dust that could fit, comfortably, inside a small can of tuna.

But, as the saying goes, good things come in small packages. And as small as the sample is, it is 20 times larger than the amount of asteroid material previously returned to Earth by a pair of Japanese sample return missions. A little will go a long How scientists study the organic matter and other materials in this asteroid dust to glean clues about the origin of life and the conditions that existed at the dawn of our Solar System. You don’t need handfuls of material to get a meaningful result with an electron microscope.

Additionally, the sample recovery doubled the minimum requirement for the mission, 60 grams. OSIRIS-REx can therefore now definitely be considered a resounding success.

Waiting for your moment

The scientific community had to wait longer than expected to find out how much material OSIRIS-REx brought to Earth. As engineers and technicians at the Johnson Space Center in Houston worked to open the sample container last October, two stubborn fasteners hindered them. Only after new tools were devised was the sample container finally opened to reveal the little treasure in January.

In the coming weeks, some of the Bennu material will be packaged and distributed for researchers to study. As part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, a group of more than 200 scientists from around the world will explore the properties of regolith, including researchers from many US institutions, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA, however, intends to reserve about 70 percent of the material for future studies.