Bennu the Asteroid
and the hoover We have to admire the world of science and especially scientists. Sometimes, we get to remember that nothing beats common sense. Not saying that scientists don’t have common sense, but just sometimes… Here goes: OSIRIS-Rex! This is a space probe designed to get to an asteroid and collect a sample before returning to Earth. It is not a simple process after all. Oh yes: Cost? About $1 bn. Give and take. So a nice asteroid got identified. One of those carbon-rich ones that might be harbouring the elements of life. Bennu the Asteroid is old. Long before the formation of Earth so it will tell us a lot about how life formed and how the universe came together. The problem is that there is no gravity so anything might just bounce off and be lost forever. The clever people came up with the solution. Don’t ‘land’ in the classical sense. Just get close enough to high-five Bennu and sink a probe down in the surface. The probe is a great device. It resembles the head of an industrial hoover. The theory is that this one will just touch the surface (mostly just dust and sand), fire a jet of air from the rim which the ‘hoover’ can then suck up. Just some 60 g is fine and more is a bonus. But nothing beats reality…
