Congrats to NASA on a fantastic mission! Can’t wait to hear about the results from the research on the samples.
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Officials later said the orange striped parachute opened four times higher than anticipated — around 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) — correctly basing it on the deceleration rate.
Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.
Flight controllers for spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin stood and applauded at touchdown from their base in Colorado, ecstatic to have the precious samples on Earth.
NASA camera views showed the charred capsule upside down on the sand with its parachute disconnected and strewn nearby, as the recovery team moved in.
With these samples, “we are edging closer to understanding its early chemical composition, the formation of water, and the molecules life is based on,” astronomer Daniel Brown of Nottingham Trent University in England said.
The surface was so loose that the spacecraft’s vacuum arm sank a foot or two (0.5 meters) into the asteroid, sucking up more material than anticipated and jamming the lid.
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I hope that couple that fucked on moon rocks gets the chance to do the same with asteroid rocks one day.
