SPACE BUG PANDEMIC coming in 2023!!!

[Keith_Indy]

OK, probably not, but collecting samples from space and depositing them here on Earth is the start of many sci-fi doomsday scenarios...

So, ya heard it here first...

Coming Home: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission to Begin Return from Deep Space

Robotic spacecraft begins its two-year voyage to bring back 300-gram soil sample from asteroid Bennu

spectrum.ieee.org

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sampling probe is one of the rare exceptions. On May 10, if everything works, it will start on its way home. No, NASA hasn’t had a change of philosophy, and OSIRIS-REx itself will never land on Earth. But sealed inside a re-entry capsule on its instrument deck is a tiny sample of rock and dirt from the surface of the asteroid 101955 Bennu, and scientists are waiting for it. It is a precious cache: Bennu is believed to be made of carbon-rich debris from the early ages of the solar system.

“Bennu is a time capsule,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. “It’s been out there for four and a half billion years waiting for us.”

OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, has been orbiting and mapping Bennu since 2018, and in October it descended to the asteroid’s surface to grab some of its soil. Today, six months later, the ship is virtually on the opposite side of the sun from Earth—an optimal time for it to fire its main engines for a trip that should allow it to drop its sample capsule in the Utah desert, 80 km west of Salt Lake City, on September 24, 2023.

 

[Ruger_Ronin]

OK, probably not, but collecting samples from space and depositing them here on Earth is the start of many sci-fi doomsday scenarios...

So, ya heard it here first...

Coming Home: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission to Begin Return from Deep Space

Robotic spacecraft begins its two-year voyage to bring back 300-gram soil sample from asteroid Bennu

spectrum.ieee.org

Remember Whiskey Outpost!

 

[avboiler11]

WILDFIRE

 

[joe138]

Andromeda Strain?

 

[Alamo]

I predict when the open the sealed container a plastic shopping bag and a wadded up can of malt liquor will be in it. And a cigarette butt.

 

[bobzilla]

Andromeda Strain?

That was my first thought

 

[Keith_Indy]

I predict when the open the sealed container a plastic shopping bag and a wadded up can of malt liquor will be in it. And a cigarette butt.

you forgot those plastic things they use for 6-packs...

 

[Alamo]

you forgot those plastic things they use for 6-packs...

And since it's apparently a really old asteroid, a couple pull tabs as well.

 

[jsx1043]

 

[chevyguy]