2 days ago
Tiny fragment of asteroid giving Field Museum scientists a glimpse 4.6 billion years into the past
The Field Museum is the new temporary home to a tiny piece of pristine asteroid. The fragment of the asteroid Bennu, on loan from NASA, won't be on display for visitors, but will give scientists the chance to study an asteroid sample uncontaminated by Earth's atmosphere.
A tiny, black fragment might not seem exciting, until a scientist explains it's a specimen from space.
"It's an honor of a lifetime to be able to study this sample," said Field Museum curator Dr. Philipp Heck.
How did Heck feel when the little rock first arrived at the museum and he held the vial containing the sample?
"It was amazing. I was looking forward to that moment for a long time," he said.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission was planned decades ago. In 2016, a spacecraft launched. In 2018, it arrived at Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid as wide as the Sears Tower is tall.
The mission collected pieces of the asteroid and brought them back to Earth in 2023.
"This is the first U.S. mission that sends a spacecraft to the asteroid and brings a sample back to Earth," said University of Chicago graduate student Yuke Zheng, who is part of the OSIRIS-REx sample analysis team. "It's a tiny, dark, black fragment that is fragile, so we want to protect it very carefully."
She'll use the museum's scanning electron microscope to get an up-close look at a tiny sample of Bennu.
"What struck me is how dark the sample is. I had never seen such a dark sample," Heck said.
The fragment is like a time capsule, taking scientists back 4.6 billion years.
"We believe Bennu contains part of the ingredients for life, and part of the ingredients of the formation of Earth," Heck said.
Suddenly, a fragment at the bottom of a vial can have you pondering your place in the universe.
"I've never studied a pristine sample from an asteroid," Heck said.
