The US space probe over two years of flight has arrived for the purpose – the asteroid

The NASA spacecraft (National Administration of American Aeronautics) has arrived for more than two years on its flight, the asteroid Bennu, in order to hand over his samples to Earth later [19659002] According to NASA, a probe named OSIRIS-REx a few kilometers from the surface of the asteroid, having crossed this distance of about 2 billion kilometers from the Earth

. In the coming days, an automatic probe 3.5 meters long should approach the asteroid, 500 meters long, and close the orbit around 31 December. "Benna". Until now, no space vehicle had yet escaped the orbit of such a small cosmic body.

The probe must hold around an asteroid for more than two years, mapping its surface and studying its composition, as well as "on the fly" to perform a special mechanical "test" on a small sample of the surface, to bring it back to Earth in 2023.

As NASA says, this will allow scientists to better understand the trajectory of the movement of asteroids potentially dangerous for the Earth.

One of the main tasks of the space mission is to study the effect of solar radiation on the orbits of asteroids, which potentials. They could collide with the Earth.

According to some calculations, the asteroid Bennett could theoretically meet Earth in the future, although the probability is very low – it is much more likely that it will be destroyed by falling into the Sun. or Venus or throwing gravitational forces beyond the interior of the solar system, that is to say the orbit of Mars.

Moreover, the important task is to obtain new information on the creation and evolution of the solar system, as well as organic compounds that have led to the emergence of life on Earth , on this asteroid, which belongs to the class C carbon.

OSIRIS-REx was launched from the Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida in September 2016.