Subscribe: RSS Podcasts iTunes
wikiofthedaymasto.ai
  Buy WotD Stuff!!
Episode 2339             Episode 2341
Episode 2340

OSIRIS-REx
Fri, 2023-Sep-29 01:20 UTC
Length - 4:08

Direct Link

Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.

With 1,931,435 views on Thursday, 28 September 2023 our article of the day is OSIRIS-REx.

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) as currently defined, is both the name of a NASA

spacecraft to investigate asteroids and the name of the first of its two missions. The first mission was to collect and return to Earth samples from Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid The second mission, named Apophis Explorer, or Osiris-APEX, is to study another near-Earth asteroid, Apophis, but without returning a sample. This mission is scheduled for completion in April 2029, shortly after the Apophis asteroid makes a near-Earth flyby. The spacecraft completed its first mission on September 24, 2023, by ejecting its sample return capsule during a near-Earth flyby. The capsule parachuted safely to the ground in a US government training range near Salt Lake City, Utah and was retrieved by an awaiting team. It was transported to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas for scientific study.

Analysis of the Bennu samples should enable scientists to better understand the formation and evolution of the Solar System, the initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds which led to the origin of life on Earth. OSIRIS-REx was launched on 8 September 2016, then flew past Earth on 22 September 2017, and rendezvoused with Bennu on 3 December 2018. It spent the next two years analyzing the surface to find a suitable site from which to extract a sample. On 20 October 2020, about 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) from Earth, OSIRIS-REx touched down on Bennu and successfully collected a sample. OSIRIS-REx departed Bennu on 10 May 2021 and returned its sample to Earth on 24 September 2023, subsequently starting its second mission to study 99942 Apophis.

The near-Earth asteroid Bennu, the first objective of the spacecraft, was chosen for close study because it is believed to be a "time capsule" from the birth of the Solar System. Bennu has a very dark surface and is classified as a B-type asteroid, a sub-type of the carbonaceous C-type asteroids. Such asteroids are considered primitive, having undergone little geological change from their time of formation. In particular, Bennu was selected because of the availability of pristine carbonaceous material, a key element in organic molecules necessary for life as well as representative of matter from before the formation of Earth. Organic molecules have previously been found in meteorite and comet samples, indicating that some ingredients necessary for life can be naturally synthesized in outer space. The cost of the spacecraft's first "Osiris-REx mission" is approximately US$800 million, not including the Atlas V launch vehicle, which is about US$183.5 million. The cost of the spacecraft's second "OSIRIS-APEX mission" is an additional US$200 million. The Osiris-REx program is the third planetary science program selected in the New Frontiers program, after Juno and New Horizons. The principal investigator is Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was the first United States spacecraft to return samples from an asteroid; the earlier, similar Japanese probe Hayabusa returned samples from 25143 Itokawa in 2010, and Hayabusa2 returned from 162173 Ryugu in December 2020.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:20 UTC on Friday, 29 September 2023.

For the full current version of the article, see OSIRIS-REx on Wikipedia.

This podcast is produced by Abulsme Productions based on Wikipedia content and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit wikioftheday.com for our archives. Please subscribe to never miss an episode. On Mastodon follow us at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Abulsme Productions produces the current events podcast Curmudgeon's Corner as well. Check it out in your podcast player of choice.

This has been Arthur Neural. Thank you for listening to popular Wiki of the Day.

Archive
2017:MayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2018:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2019:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2020:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2021:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2022:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2023:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2024:JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Most Recent Episodes


Feedback welcome at feedback@wikioftheday.com.

These podcasts are produced by Abulsme Productions based on Wikipedia content.

They are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons License

Abulsme Productions also produces Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

If you like that sort of thing, check it out too!


Page cached at 2024-12-01 13:04:52 UTC
Original calculation time was 0.2388 seconds

Page displayed at 2024-12-01 17:03:48 UTC
Page generated in 0.0005 seconds