This picture of the earth reminds us how small we are.

20 18+654381October 7, the OSIRIS REx asteroid sampling spacecraft of the national aeronautics and space administration (NASA) of the United States took this photo at a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million kilometers) from the earth, and the earth and the moon were just dots. (Image copyright) NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin, this is a new perspective, with the help of NASA asteroid sampling detector.

The earth and the moon are two bright spots, floating in a huge black gap. From a new perspective, it was photographed by the OSIRIS REx spacecraft of NASA on June 5th, 6438 +654381October 7th, 6438, from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million kilometers).

In fact, it is not a blank; If you look carefully, you can also see some other things in the photo. In the description of this photo released today (February 14), NASA officials wrote, [Osiris Rex: NASA asteroid sample return mission picture].

"Several constellations can also be seen in the surrounding space." The bright cluster in the upper left corner is the Pleiades of Taurus. Hamar is the brightest star in Aries, located in the upper right corner of the image. As part of the engineering test, earth-moon system lies among five stars composed of Ceylon head of whale.

Officials of the agency added that Osiris-Rex passed the earth at a speed of about 65,438+09,000 mph (30,600 km/h) while taking photos with a navigation camera.

This is a $800 million Osiris Rex mission, which was launched in September 2065438+2006. The mission is to intercept samples from the huge and potentially dangerous near-earth asteroid Benu Bird and send them back to Earth.

The spacecraft's path to Benu Bird is tortuous. Osiris Rex made an accelerated and orbit-optimized earth flight last September, and plans to rendezvous with space rocks this summer. The probe will study the Benu bird from orbit for a period of time, and then spiral down and collect samples in July 2020.

If all goes according to plan, this sample will return to Earth in September, 2023, sealed in a water tank and floating at the parachute-assisted landing site in the Utah desert.

Mission scientists hope that Osiris Rex can tell them more about the role that dark, primitive and carbon-rich asteroids, such as the Benu bird, may have played in sowing the cornerstone of life for the earth a long time ago. Nasa officials said that the observation results of the probe will also prove useful to future asteroid miners and people who study the best way to push potentially dangerous space rocks off the earth.

This broad scientific goal is described in detail in the full name of this task, which is quite convincing: origin, spectral interpretation, resource identification, safety and weathering explorer.

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