NASA is inviting people around the world to submit short messages and images on social media that could be placed in a time capsule aboard a spacecraft launching to an asteroid in 2016.
Called the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), the spacecraft will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2019, collect a sample and return the cache in a capsule to Earth in 2023 for detailed study.
The robotic mission will spend more than two years at the 1,760-foot-wide asteroid and return a minimum of 60 g of its surface material.
Topics for submissions by the public should be about solar system exploration in 2014 and predictions for space exploration activities in 2023. The mission team will choose 50 tweets and 50 images to be placed in the capsule.
"I look forward to the public taking their best guess at what the next 10 years holds and then comparing their predictions with actual missions in development in 2023," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
When the sample return capsule returns to Earth in 2023 with the asteroid material, the mission team will open the time capsule to view the messages and images.
The OSIRIS-REx mission is focused on finding answers to basic questions about the composition of the very early solar system and the source of organic materials and water that made life possible on Earth.
