NASA Drills into an Asteroid
On Tuesday, NASA´s spacecraft performed a complexmaneuver to drill into the Bennu asteroid for five seconds. In the historic operation, the spacecraft collected a sample from an asteroid in space, over 160 million kilometers from Earth.
Asteroids are among the leftover debris from the solar system´s formation 4.5 billion years ago, and scientists believe that the asteroid could hold clues to the origins of life on Earth. Scientifically, it is a very exciting event because it is the first time that humans have touched the surface of another solar system object in order to get a sample of it.
The spacecraft´s journey to the asteroid began in 2016, and it has been in orbit around the asteroid for almost two years. According to NASA, there is a 1 in 2700 chance that the asteroid will hit Earth late into the next century.
Difficult words: complex (complicated), maneuver (a skillful movement), debris (remains).