Nasa confirms return of asteroid Bennu samples. Beállítások

[Kennocha]

Dusty samples from the "most dangerous known rock in the Solar System" have been brought to Earth.

The American space agency Nasa landed the materials in a capsule that came down in the West Desert of Utah state.

The samples had been scooped up from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020 by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft.

Nasa wants to learn more about the mountainous object, not least because it has an outside chance of hitting our planet in the next 300 years.

But more than this, the samples are likely to provide fresh insights into the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago and possibly even how life got started on our world.

Osiris-Rex: Asteroid Bennu 'is a journey back to our origins'
There was jubilation when the Osiris-Rex team caught sight of their capsule on long-range cameras.

Touchdown on desert land belonging to the Department of Defense was confirmed at 10:52 local time (14:52 GMT), three minutes ahead of schedule.

The car-tyre-sized container had come screaming into the atmosphere over the western US at more than 12km/s (27,000mph). A heatshield and parachutes slowed its descent and dropped it gently, perfectly on to restricted ground.

"This little capsule understood the assignment," said Tim Priser, the chief engineer at aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin. "It touched down like a feather."

Asked how the operation went to retrieve the capsule from the desert, some of the recovery workers returning in their helicopters told BBC News' science team that it was "awesome".

"I cried like a baby in that helicopter when I heard that the parachute had opened and we were coming in for a soft landing," said Osiris-Rex principal investigator Dante Lauretta.

"It was just an overwhelming moment for me. It's an astounding accomplishment."

Scientists are eager to get their hands on the precious cargo which pre-landing estimates put at some 250 grams (9oz).

That might not sound like very much - the weight of an adult hamster, as one scientist described it - but for the types of tests Nasa teams want to do, it is more than ample.

"We can analyse at a very high resolution very small particles," said Eileen Stansbery, the chief scientist at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Texas.

"We know how to slice and dice a 10 micron-sized particle into a dozen slices and to then map grain by grain at nano scales. So, 250 grams is huge."
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