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A NASA Probe Is So Full of Asteroid Material That It Now Has A Problem

[npr.org]

FearlessFly 9 Oct 25
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October 23, 2020

When the Osiris-Rex mission was planned and organized there was little known about Bennu, journey’s end for the spacecraft. Osiris-Rex was designed to collect dust and sandy soil from the surface of an asteroid and then return it safely to Earth.

Many ideas guide mission team members. Among them are ideas about asteroid composition. About 15% of all asteroids are pairs. Those celestial doublets are said to result from sunlight causing an asteroid’s spin-rate to increase. Since asteroids are thought to be loosely compacted “rubble piles”, increased angular momentum is thought to force the rocky conglomerate apart, forming another rubble pile in orbit about the first. That is why mission specialists built Osiris-Rex the way they did.

The rubble pile theory is used to explain mass anomalies that are seen in asteroid crater studies. Some asteroid craters are so large that the asteroid, itself, should no longer exist, the impact should have blown it into fragments. Asteroids like Mathilde, where one third of a hemisphere is missing, are “mysterious”. The conventional explanation is that asteroids are loosely compacted. It is thought that, when something hits them, they respond like big piles of sand, absorbing the impacts—there is no hard crust, so they do not fracture.

Gravity on asteroids is minute, so banding, landslides, and layering of surface rocks is said to be from micro-meteor impacts “shaking” them. Over long periods of time, the shaking sorts materials by size and density, in the same way that a jar of sand and pebbles will sort itself when it is shaken. According to the rubble pile theory, that is. It was this idea that drove the sample collection device design.

As Osiris-Rex neared Bennu, the team was ready. The surface appeared to correspond with everything they expected to see, until one day, surprising images arrived. Bennu was not a sandy rubble pile, it was a collection of boulders, ranging from a few millimeters to several meters in size.

Expecting to settle-in and start operations, NASA scientists had to begin an exhaustive study of the asteroid’s surface, so that they could find a place to collect their samples. The regolith was so rocky and jagged that attempting to touch Bennu could destroy Osiris-Rex. Their collection device was something similar to the look of an automobile air filter; it was not made to collect rocks. Finally, after months of study, Bennu was “tagged”—material from the surface was agitated and flew up toward the instrument.
The mission team is now waiting to see if their efforts were successful.

Stephen Smith

Source: The thunderbolts.info picture of the day

[rationalwiki.org]

@FearlessFly Rationalwiki.org is an interesting site. The last time I checked, several years ago, the text of its footnotes for EU either directly contradicted or failed to support the attacks in its main body text. If you have evidence for rationalwiki’s integrity, please let me know what it is.
NASA itself is compromised by its interest in Congress’ continuing to fund it in multibillion dollar amounts.

@FearlessFly Not everyone can study astrophysics and you have not.

In cosmology, only those with billions of dollars can use the scientific method (make testable hypotheses, confirm those hypotheses in the laboratory, and make testable predictions from those confirmed hypothesis) and you’re not doing that.

You are relying on rationalwiki’s authority and loaded language [“pseudo...”], and it is relying on NASA’s untested gravity-only and mathematics-only speculations.

You choose.

Science fiction is popular with people who read fiction. I hope you will post the science fiction you find in a sci fi readers group.

@yvilletom . . . you asked for "evidence for rationalwiki’s integrity", I gave it. 😛
Is there (independent) evidence of integrity for EU ?

When I put "einstein relativity confirmation" in a search engine, I get 10+ pages of results.

Einstein isn't the only theoretical physicist.
[en.wikipedia.org]

@FearlessFly I had a degree in math and was in graduate school studying physics [1961-62] when I heard and doubted the big bang story. Since retiring, I learned of EU and am satisfied with its claims and its integrity.

You go ahead and believe what you like.

@yvilletom (not intended as 'attack' on your academics)
. . . so instead of evidence, "learned of EU and am satisfied with its claims"

Replace EU with HOLY_BOOK -- that could be construed as 'religion' 😛

@FearlessFly In your fevered imagination. Period.

@yvilletom . . . you provide no independent evidence of EU integrity.

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