Samples from an Asteroid.

[rov1200]

Why was it necessary to send a spacecraft to an orbiting asteroid to collect samples when fragments of planetary material including asteroids often land on Earth unaided?

[bibblebub]

uncontaminated samples are best

[Milvus]

There also may be samples that would not survive the intense heat of entering our atmosphere

[rov1200]

bibblebud, what even when the samples are collected from the sanitised Arctic. I suppose there must be good reasons for spending over $200m on the experiment. Maybe Milvus is right but as its rock you would think its the composition of its interior that matters.

[Garmard]

Also, their maybe material that is unknown to us that could have been picked up on that asteroid to wet our appetite?

[rov1200]

More info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk...ironment/10307048.stm

[rov1200]

Here is a big one:

http://science.nasa.g...asa/2000/ast01jun_1m/

[Garmard]

Makes you wonder when THE big one is going to hit us doesn't it?

[dundurn]

Asteroid samples have a lot in common with antiques - provenance is everything!

[jake-the-peg]

as dundurn implies we don't know that asteroids are the same as the meteroites, it's supposition this should prove it.

But more importantly every meteorite goes through a traumatic reentry which will destroy a lot of the chemicals that may be found on them.

The presence of complex molecules in space is of quite a lot of interest