The American space agency NASA in association with the University of Arizona is launching an unmanned probe to a near-Earth-asteroid named Bennu for understanding certain fundamental questions about the origins of our planet and the human race.
In the Project named OSIRIS-REx Mission, scientists will be able to learn from the asteroid that according to them could turn dangerous to life on Earth in the future.
Image courtesy: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
The mission is poised to launch an unmanned spacecraft on September 8 in the efforts to reach Bennu according to a website devoted to the mission.
The probe will survey Bennu until a small vacuum-like device is capable of hovering above the asteroid and sucking up somewhere between 60 and and 400 grams of “gravel and soil” to bring back to Earth in the year 2023.
According to scientists heading the probe, Bennu has a one in 2,700 chance of hitting Earth, and such an event wouldn’t take place for 150 years.
