Asteroid Bennu may possibly respond to very long sought inquiries, some South Florida scientists say

MIAMI — When the capsule from the OSIRIS-REx room craft touched down Sunday on Earth, Alessandro Peca, a College of Miami astro physics grad college student was paying out attention

“That is tremendous, tremendous enjoyable,” he stated, including that the half-pound of rocks and space dust collected from the asteroid just before it was sealed could maintain a ton of responses to some incredibly major inquiries. “Appropriate now we believe that there is some type of life there, but we you should not have proof of that. Proof can occur from these resources.”

Dr. Doug Roberts, CEO of Frost Science and an astrophysicist, claimed the findings could answer questions.

“Definitely!” he stated. “That’s the kind of awesome factor when you have a new mission that is bringing a new window in the universe. You know you can find going to be new discoveries we can only guess at.” 

He viewed the landing and instructed CBS Information Miami that the materials brought from outer place was pristine, as opposed to the meteorites we research that have fallen to earth.

“This just one is melted and arrived by means of our environment and was sitting around on the floor a prolonged time and interacting with our atmosphere,” he explained pointing out a meteorite in the Frost Science Museum. “Whereas the one there has not been improved in 4-and-a-50 percent billion several years due to the fact the photo voltaic procedure was born.”

Roberts said it could assistance researchers recognize how the Earth and our solar program were being shaped.

“It is so remarkable to have a mission that goes to touch some area or examine some place you have under no circumstances touched ahead of,” he said.

This is a mission that ignites the creativity.

“This is pretty major,” Peca said. “This can change our perception of the universe (and) our function in the universe for the reason that as a issue of reality we are just a little minor dot in a large universe.”

Researchers will be equipped to study the asteroid for decades to occur. 

About 60 percent of the content that was collected is going to be held so scientists at a foreseeable future day can get a search with new technological know-how.

Frost Planetarium strategies to discuss the mission at shows with in the future number of weeks. They are also setting up a screen with images and online video of the mission.