After being released from the spacecraft, NASA's first asteroid samples settle on Earth

 After being released from the spacecraft, NASA's first asteroid samples settle on Earth

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft delivered the sample capsule during a flyby of Earth from a distance of 63,000 miles (100,000 km). Four hours later, as the mothership departed in search of another asteroid, the little capsule touched down on a secluded area of military land.

After a seven-year trip, the first asteroid samples ever collected by NASA parachuted onto the Utah desert on Sunday.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft delivered the sample capsule during a flyby of Earth from a distance of 63,000 miles (100,000 km). Four hours later, as the mothership departed in search of another asteroid, the little capsule touched down on a secluded area of military land.

"We have made a touchdown!" Flight Control made an announcement and then quickly repeated it since the landing happened three minutes earlier than expected. Officials later claimed that the early touchdown was caused by the orange-striped parachute opening four times higher than expected, at a height of about 20,000 feet (6,100 metres).

Before the container is opened, scientists will only be able to make an educated guess as to how much debris from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu is contained inside. When the spacecraft gathered up too much debris and pebbles during collecting three years ago, some overflowed and floated away.

In its two asteroid missions, Japan, the only other nation to send back asteroids samples, collected around a teaspoon.

The largest harvest from outside the moon was delivered on Sunday and consists of rocks and dust. The samples, which are well-preserved building blocks from the beginning of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, will aid scientists in understanding how Earth and life developed.

In 2016, the mothership, Osiris-Rex, launched on a $1 billion mission. In 2020, it used a long stick hoover to collect debris from the small, oblong space rock after arriving on Bennu two years earlier. The spaceship travelled 4 billion miles (6.2 billion km) before it came back.

Excited to have the priceless samples on Earth, flight controllers for spacecraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin stood and cheered during touchdown from their base in Colorado. As the recovery crew moved in, NASA camera views showed the burned capsule lying upside down on the sand with its parachute unattached and scattered nearby.

Helicopters and a temporary clean room built up at the Defence Department's Utah Test and Training Range were part of NASA's recovery effort in Utah. The samples will be flown on a new lab at the NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston on Monday morning. Already housed in the structure are the hundreds of pounds (kg) of moon rocks that the Apollo astronauts collected more than 50 years ago.

Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, the mission's principal investigator, will go to Texas with the samples. Given the ambiguity surrounding the contents, the container's opening in Houston in a day or two will be "the real moment of truth," he stated ahead of the landing.

The canister is thought to contain 250 grammes (8.82 ounces) of Bennu material, plus or minus 100 grammes (3.53 ounces). According to Lauretta, even at the low end, it will easily surpass the mission's bare minimum.

A accurate measurement won't be available for a few weeks, according to NASA's lead curator Nicole Lunning.

In October, NASA intends to do a public show-and-tell.

Bennu, which is roughly the size of the Empire State Building and has the shape of a spinning top, is 50 million miles (81 million km) from Earth and is now orbiting the sun. It is about one-third of a mile (one-half of a kilometre) broad. It is thought to be a shattered piece of a bigger asteroid.

Osiris-Rex discovered Bennu to be a large debris field full of boulders and craters during a two-year survey. Because of the asteroid's loose surface, the vacuum arm of the spaceship dipped a foot or two (0.5 metres) into the body of the object, vacuuming up more material than expected and blocking the lid.

These detailed findings might prove useful later in the twenty-first century. In 2182, Bennu is anticipated to pass perilously close to Earth, perhaps even making contact. Any attempt to divert an asteroid will be aided by the information collected by Osiris-Rex, according to Lauretta.

The asteroid Apophis is already being pursued by Osiris-Rex, and it will be reached in 2029.

This was NASA's third deep space robotic mission sample return. In 2004, the Genesis spacecraft released solar wind fragments, but the samples were damaged when the parachute malfunctioned and the capsule crashed to the earth. In 2006, the Stardust spacecraft delivered comet dust with success.

NASA's efforts to bring back samples from Mars have been put on hold because of concerns about their expense and complexity. Over the past two years, the Martian rover Perseverance has been gathering core samples for eventual delivery to Earth.