Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator from the University of Arizona, stepped out of the helicopter at Dugway Proving Grounds on September 24, soon after the capsule with the sample from the asteroid Bennu had landed. He was greeted by members of the press from across the world eagerly awaiting his reaction. The OSIRIS-REx mission, a seven-year journey to Bennu and back was a major success and Lauretta led the billion-dollar project comprised of a team of 450 people, including engineers and scientists from Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory.
“You know we have a special relationship Bennu and I, it’s challenged us in a good way, it’s really brought out the best in this team. And I just know it wanted to get here. It wanted to get into the labs. It wanted us to reveal the secrets that are held inside, and I wanted to be on the welcome wagon, I wanted to say welcome to earth,” said Lauretta.
At the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday, NASA revealed the preliminary analysis of the asteroid sample, the material on the outer perimeter of the cannister containing the main sample. The material looks like fine sand and rubble that is blacker than charcoal. I talked to Lauretta about the latest findings, which he said were as expected based on their analyses while the spacecraft was at Bennu, 200 miles away.
The OSIRIS REx mission, a seven-year journey to Benu and back was a major success and Loretta led the billion-dollar project comprised of a team of 450 people, including engineers and scientists from Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory. at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday, NASA revealed the preliminary analysis of the asteroids sample the material on the outer perimeter of the canister containing the main sample, the material looks like fine sand and rubble that is blacker than charcoal. I talked to Dante Lauretta about the latest findings, which he said were as expected based on their analyses while the spacecraft was at Bennu 200 million miles away.
"Lots of clays, which contain the water. So that's great, we predicted that. The carbonate minerals, and I like to compare them to the kind of the white crusts that form around your faucets from hard water. And they reflect the same kind of process water carrying basically carbonated water with calcium dissolved and when the water evaporates, it precipitates the carbonate behind it. And then the iron sulfides and the iron oxides, which are also typical products of hydrothermal systems. So, we think Benu is a part of a much larger asteroid that was shattered a long, long time ago, hundreds of millions of years ago. And that larger asteroid appeared like it had a lot of water in hydrothermal systems like we see in oceanic hydrothermal vents today on Earth. That's the kind of environment that we're envisioning the samples formed in. And that looks really promising so far, that we're on the right path for our understanding of the geologic history of this material. And I think the most exciting thing so far is that really high carbon abundance, 4.7% by weight of the material we've analyzed is rich in carbon. And Danny Glavin leads the organic Analysis Working Group and boy, are they excited to get into the details? Where is all of that carbon? How much is in the mineral? How much is in the organics? What is the diversity of organics? And really, what does that tell us about possible pathways to the origin of life?" said Lauretta.
Quinn: Is that really what this mission overall is trying to answer?
"That is one of the prime science objectives, right. And "O" is for origins. And we're talking about the origin of the solar system, the origin of earth, especially the origin of the habitable earth, and the origin of life. And we think these asteroids record the earliest processes that may have kind of seeded the planets with the building blocks, maybe triggered the origin of life. Not only on Earth, but maybe on Venus, maybe on Mars, maybe out in the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. So, if we can verify, yeah, there were these carbon rich asteroids in the early solar system, the organic molecules were evolving, we're getting processed in hydrothermal systems, all of the planets should have had that material early on in their history. That means the origin of life may have been a potential everywhere. And of course, with our Mars rovers, and our sample return and our missions to the moons of Jupiter, that's what we're looking for. We're looking for life on those objects. And if they have a chance of getting the seeds of the origin of life like asteroid Bennu might provide, that that ups the odds that maybe life is still there today.
Quinn: When you came off the helicopter at Dugway, you had said that you and Bennu have a special relationship? What is that special relationship?
"Yeah, it's an interesting question. It was obviously an emotional moment for me. So, we picked venue as the target of this mission in 2005. And that was doing its second apparition in the night sky. We discovered it in 1999. But it was still kind of mysterious. And we were going through this process, which asteroid do you send your spacecraft to? There're hundreds of 1000s of known asteroids in the solar system, you have to pick one. And in 2005, we got a heads up from a colleague at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 'Hey, there's an interesting object that's coming close to the Earth in September of 2005. And it looks like it might be a good target for your mission.' So, we rally the international astronomy community. We're like get every telescope you can on this thing. And as the data started to pour in, I just got this feeling like this is the one. This is the target for OSIRIS-REx. It's got the right orbit, it's got the right size, it's got this fascinating shape, right, this spherical spinning top kind of shape, and it looks dark and possibly rich in carbon. So, As I looked at all the data, I was like, we got it, we found you. You're the one that's been calling to us for this mission. And of course, it's kind of been, I don't know what the right way to say it. Bennu has challenged us. I call it the trickster. It's always got something up its sleeve. It doesn't ever make it easy for us. But in the end, it's given up the goods, right. It gave up the sample. So, you kind of get into this relationship that's like, 'what are you going to do today? It's like you're playing a practical joke on me, you're shooting particles off your surface,' we didn't see that one coming. The surface is really rough, so all of that great astronomical data tricked us. We thought we were going to a smooth and sandy surface, but it was rough and rugged and covered in boulders. So, you kind of develop this respect for the object like, look, you don't take it lightly. It's going to give us the science that we want, but it's not going to make it easy. It's going to challenge us. And I love it because this team thrives on challenges, right? If it was easy, we wouldn't everybody would be doing it, it is really hard. And this team just rose to that challenge. And Bennu has been there all the way.
