Mission OSIRIS-REx- Predicting the next asteroid slam
Mighty Asteroid could have hit, just got saved
There was an asteroid 100 feet long, that came dashing towards the Earth and was about to cause a disastrous terrestrial calamity. This asteroid missed earth by just 50.000 miles, but the most alarming element is that nobody came to know that it was going to hit us. However, the problem is avoided, and astronomers are relieved now.
NASA about to launch next mission
NASA’s mission OSIRIS-REx is not far where an $800 million probe will be launched to get some clues about the origin of the earth. OSIRIS-Rex stands for Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security- Regolith Explorer. The probe will land on an asteroid that is much larger in size than the nearly missed one and is one of the reminders of the beginning of the solar system.
Aim of the Mission
In a press conference held by Jeffrey Grossman, one of the mission scientists told about the mission that it advances the practical aims of NASA extended towards a better understanding of both, the resources as well as hazards of the near-Earth Solar system.
The Old Benny
A nine- year-old boy from North Carolina has named the asteroid (where NASA plans to launch its probe) as Benny. This name was suggested for several reasons. First of all, it is really old and dates back to the beginning of our solar system. This is the reason why Benny holds significant importance because it can exhibit any chemical secret that will tell that how did Earth become the first and up till now, the only planet to host life. Bennu was discovered in 1999. It is a “near-Earth Object” which follows an orbit around Sun just like that of Earth’s. It may be very close to us. But, it certainly isn’t a friend of our home planet, rather it can be a cause of its disaster. This is because it passes the Earth in every six years. This close distance concerns the scientists who are of the view that Bennu can hit us in the next two centuries.
Mission to predict future of Bennu
Many of us believe that the planetary motion has been described perfectly by the Kepler Laws that govern the motion of heavenly objects, including the comets and asteroids. These Kepler Laws can be used to calculate their precise tours around the suns. However, these laws are insufficient as proposed by “the Yarkovsky effect,” a phenomenon known by the spy-novel sounding moniker. This phenomenon explains the speeding up of a big chunk of rock as the sunlight heats it and black space cools it down. It can accelerate, and this acceleration will slightly jolt its direction. The principal investigator of this mission, Dante Lauretta said that the Yarkovsky effect is responsible for thrusting the asteroid and changing its trajectory. She further said that this phenomenon has to be accounted for whenever you need to predict the future direction and trajectory of an object like Bennu.
OSIRIS-REx- detailed explanation of Yarkovsky effect
In the next 160 years, astronomers believe that the orbit of Bennu will track Earth’s orbit even more closely. In the mission, OSIRIS-REx, NASA will collect precise data about the shape, space features and composition of Bennu so that the Yarkovsky effect can be explained in detail and ultimately, we can predict the risks that the asteroid poses to Earth in detail. “2016 QA2” was the near miss but we will know about the next risk long before.
Asteroid Risks Taken Seriously by NASA
Congress has directed NASA to seriously cater to the risks of the impact of an asteroid. Hence, a database of all possible hazards and for categorizing all their threats, a scientific scale will be maintained. In 2010, the National Research Council had published a report about different risks of asteroids. It suggests that rock like 2016 QA2 can have some very serious hazards.
Mission Return
The spacecraft will come back with a sample weighing 4.4 pounds of Bennu rock. Scientists expect that the minimum amount returned by scientists will be 2 ounces. There will be a lot of work to know about that little material and its impact and then a much better idea will be required to know what hazards will be caused when the entire 1,600-foot wide asteroid will slam into the earth at the next century’s end.