Six California lawmakers wrote to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson last week to oppose the agency’s recent cuts to the Mars Sample Return mission, which aims to bring samples collected by the Perseverance rover on Mars to Earth.
NASA is pulling back from its Mars Sample Return program (MSR) in order to develop a revised way of bringing the Martian rocks back to Earth after its original plan was deemed unrealistic.
We’ve all been there: You’re getting some peanut butter, or looking to nosh a nice pickle, when you find your wrist strength is insufficient to get at the jar’s delicious contents.
After traveling through space for 200 million miles, rocky pieces from asteroid Bennu were dropped off on Earth by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in late September. Now, some of those fragments will be put on display for museum-goers to observe firsthand.
NASA is considering alternative ways to bring back samples from Mars after its budget and schedule for the sample return mission was deemed unrealistic in a recent report by an independent review board.
About a month ago, pristine samples from an asteroid landed on Earth while enclosed within a tight capsule. The sample canister was designed to keep the main chunk of the asteroid safe during its journey through space, but now teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) are struggling to open it to get at the space…
The OSIRIS-REx canister still contains the bulk of the asteroid sample inside, but pieces of the ancient space rock found on the outside have already shown evidence of organic matter embedded within tiny bits of debris.
After being dropped off on Earth by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, pieces of asteroid Bennu will be revealed to the public for the first time on Wednesday.
Scientists working to open up the sample canister containing rock and dust from asteroid Bennu have run into a problem: there’s just too much of it.