NASA has landed a spacecraft on an asteroid 333 million km away.
NASA and Lockheed Martin, its engineering partner, instructed the spacecraft to descend to the surface of Bennu, the name of the asteroid.
A rotating mosaic of Bennu captured by OSIRIS-REx in 2018 via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The probe was tasked to collect samples from the asteroid's surface and is set to bring these pieces of Bennu back to Earth in a few years' time.
Spacecraft the size of a van
The spacecraft that landed on the asteroid is known OSIRIS-REx.
It is short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer.
OSIRIS-REx
OSIRIS-REx completed its "touch-and-go" operation on Wednesday morning, Oct. 21 (Singapore time).
The spacecraft beamed back confirmation that it had landed on Bennu's surface about 18 minutes after the actual touchdown.
This is so as light takes 18 minutes and 31.0382 seconds to travel from Asteroid 101955 Bennu (1999 RQ36) to reach Earth.
The signal reached Earth at 6:11pm ET (6:11am Singapore time) and the NASA Mission Control erupted in cheers and applause.
"Transcendental. I can't believe we actually pulled this off," Dante Lauretta, the mission's principal investigator, said during NASA's live broadcast of the operation.
"The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do."
The OSIRIS-Rex probe was launched in 2016 by NASA.
The spacecraft initially reached asteroid Bennu in December 2018 and spent the past two years in its orbit.
Aiming to scoop 60g of asteroid matter
However, it will take a few days to determine if the probe picked up enough asteroid rock.
The goal was to get at least one 60g sample, a mass about a small bag of potato chips or a large chicken egg.
OSIRIS-REx has been orbiting Bennu since December 2018, scanning the asteroid and collecting as much data as possible.
It's set to leave in March 2021.
It will reach Earth on Sep. 24, 2023.
Landing on asteroid a feat
The OSIRIS-REx mission team chose a landing spot that's much smaller than originally planned to target the smoothest possible terrain on the asteroid.
Its leeway is just 8m, whereas the initial plan expected it to have 50m
The spacecraft, which is about the size of a 15-passenger van, had to target an area roughly equal to six parking spaces on the fast-spinning asteroid.
The landing spot is a relatively smooth area named Nightingale that's covered in a fine rocky dust called regolith.
OSIRIS-REx attempted to scoop up that material and send it back to Earth.
The spacecraft cannot land on rockier terrain as it risks tipping over and getting stranded.
Why study the asteroid?
Bennu is about 492m across, and orbits the Sun in the same region as Earth and Mars.
The mission's research could be crucial over the next 100 years.
Bennu's path puts it at risk of crashing into Earth.
"Bennu is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids, with a non-negligible chance of impacting the Earth at some point in the 22nd century," Lauretta said in September.
He said studying the asteroid would refine the impact probability and develop an impact-mitigation mission, if necessary.
Bennu has been called both the "doomsday asteroid" and "apocalyptic asteroid".
Physicists estimate Bennu has a one-in-2700 chance of slamming into the Earth on Sep. 21, 2135.
If Bennu hits Earth, scientists estimate the energy unleashed would be 23 times bigger than the biggest hydrogen bomb ever exploded.
Asteroid-mining
As new missions go deeper into space, they will need to make pit stops to mine asteroids for resources like water.
Water can then can be split into oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel.
What are asteroids?
Asteroids are bits of ancient rock from the beginnings of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
The leftover material that made the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars coalesced over time into asteroids.
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