When rocket scientists have to think inside the box

NASA is currently struggling to open a container holding samples from the asteroid Bennu – and it’s not like they can just call on the Incredible Hulk to brute-force the lid open (like with a jar of pickles).

Background: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission dropped off a container with a sample from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert this past September.

The good news? The space agency was already able to extract 70 grams of samples collected from the asteroid, above the minimum threshold it was shooting for.

The bad news? It’s still unable to access the bulk of the materials, which are stored inside something called a Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). Per NASA, "two of the 35 fasteners on the TAGSAM head [can’t] be removed."

• Herein lies the challenge: the TAGSAM is enclosed in what’s essentially a glass container purged with nitrogen to prevent any Earthly contamination (shown above).
• With the tools already inside the glass container, scientists are unable to open the TAGSAM. They’re currently trying to come up with a workaround that doesn’t contaminate the sample.

🤔 Why study asteroids?... They could help us ascertain how both the Earth and life on Earth came to be. Bennu appears to be rich in both water and carbon, supporting the theory that space rocks may have played an important role in the development of life on our planet.