Kate Freeman, Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences, Christopher House, professor of geosciences, and Allison Baczynski, associate research professor of geosciences, have been selected to join the NASA Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to analyze samples from the asteroid Bennu.
As part of the Participating Scientist Program, the team will receive just over $1 million over three years to measure the abundances of stable isotopes in organic matter and organic molecules contained within the samples. Their work will help scientists learn about the formation of the solar system and about molecules that may have contributed to the development of life on Earth.
“Isotope and molecule studies were already planned as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, but what Penn State brings to the project is the ability to do the analyses with much smaller quantities than is possible using commercial instruments,” Freeman said. “We’ve developed methods in our lab that take us down orders of magnitude, so we can measure much smaller amounts of sample, which is perfect when all you have is a sugar packet-size of sample.” The research is supported by NASA.