Episode 23: OSIRIS-REx and Bennu

Technology Today

Southwest Research Institute

Technology

4.8 • 19 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

What can an asteroid tell us about life on Earth? How can its orbit predict an asteroid strike on our planet? NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is searching for answers as it studies the asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched in 2016 and arrived near the asteroid in 2018. Since then, it has been mapping and surveying Bennu. Now, the mission team is preparing for a big moment, touching the asteroid surface and collecting a sample to return to Earth. Described as a time capsule of the earliest history of our solar system, Bennu could hold valuable information on the origins of life. Listen now as Mission Co-investigator and SwRI Space Scientist Dr. Vicky Hamilton discusses the discoveries of the OSIRIS-REx mission and the upcoming sample collection.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Asteroids are left over debris from the solar system's formation, and they may hold clues to the early history of the sun and planets.
0:08.9	NASA's Osiris Rex mission will bring a piece of an asteroid back to Earth, what this untouched time capsule from space could reveal about life as we know it.
0:19.1	That's next on this episode of Technology Today.
0:25.4	We live with technology, science, engineering, and the results of innovative research every day.
0:31.8	Now let's understand it better. You're listening to the Technology Today podcast presented by
0:36.7	Southwest Research Institute. Hello and welcome to Technology Today podcast presented by Southwest Research Institute.
0:39.4	Hello and welcome to technology today. I'm Lisa Benia. Our guest today describes asteroids as
0:45.1	time capsules that hold information on the history of our early solar system with records of
0:50.9	organic materials and water that brought about life on our planet.
0:55.7	Dr. Vicki Hamilton, an SWRI staff scientist and co-investigator for NASA's Osiris Rex mission,
1:03.4	is awaiting the collection of a sample from the asteroid Benu.
1:07.1	She joins us from Boulder, Colorado to tell us all about this exciting mission and what it
1:13.0	could mean for humankind. Thanks for joining us, Vicki. Hi, thanks for having me here. So let's start
1:20.9	with an overview. What is the NASA Osiris Rex mission? Well, at the most simple description, it's a mission that's
1:30.9	designed to help us understand our origins by returning a sample of leftover debris from the
1:39.0	formation of our solar system. Then I can kind of build on that by saying that Osiris Rex, the name of our mission,
1:47.5	is actually an acronym. And that acronym sort of summarizes all of the aspects of what we're
1:53.6	trying to do. So we're trying to understand origins. So that's the first, that O in Osiris Rex. And then the SI is for spectral interpretation.
2:03.6	So that's learning about the composition of the asteroid Benu. The RI is for resource identification.
2:11.6	We want to understand what potential resources exist on asteroids. Then S is for security. And that's actually
2:20.7	really interesting because Benu and some other asteroids are potentially hazardous to us on
2:26.4	Earth if they were to hit us. And then the Rex is for Regalith Explorer. And Regalith is just a
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