NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is returning from asteroid Bennu with a sample, set to land on Earth on September 24. ESA’s telescope captured the spacecraft 2.90 million miles away. Is it a spacecraft? An asteroid? Well, both. This small central speck is the first image of a spacecraft on its way h
On Sunday, September 24, the mission will drop its rocky sample off to fall through Earth’s atmosphere and land safely back home, before it continues on to study theA visible green laser shone from ESA’s Optical Ground Station . Part of Teide Observatory, the OGS located 2400 m above sea level on the volcanic island of Tenerife, used for the development of optical communication systems for space as well as space debris and near-Earth orbject surveys and quantum communication experiments.
Spotted on September 16 by ESA’s Optical Ground Station telescope in Tenerife, OSIRIS-REx was 2.90 million miles from Earth. This image is a combination of 90 individual images, each 36-second exposures. They have been combined in a way that takes into account the motion of the spacecraft, which is not traveling in a straight line, causing the seemingly stretched background stars to curve and warp.
For this observation, ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre took over the reins, directing it at the returning asteroid explorer. The NEOCC, part of the Agency’s Planetary Defence Office, is a little like Europe’s asteroid sorting hat; the center and its experts are scanning the skies for risky space rocks, computing their orbits and calculating their risk of impact.
From our small but mighty Space Safety telescope, we say ‘Hello, OSIRIS-REx, good luck NASA and welcome safely to Earth, asteroid Bennu!’.NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission The OSIRIS-REx mission, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, is a NASA-led endeavor aimed at studying the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Launched on September 8, 2016, the mission’s primary goal is to bring back a sample from the asteroid to Earth.
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No, the OSIRIS-REx probe will not bring back asteroid space 'germs'Sharmila is a Seattle-based science journalist. She found her love for astronomy in Carl Sagan's The Pale Blue Dot and has been hooked ever since. She holds an MA in Journalism from Northeastern University and has been a contributing writer for Astronomy Magazine since 2017. Follow her on Twitter at skuthunur.
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