Following a nearly three-year journey through space, the canister containing samples from asteroid Bennu has finally been opened.
NASA has successfully returned a 250-gram sample of dirt from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. Scientists around the world will study the rock particles to see if they contain clues to the origins of life on our planet.
United Launch Alliance via NASA
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to Earth to drop off rocky samples from asteroid Bennu on Sunday, marking NASA’s first attempt to retrieve a piece of a pure space rock.
NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab
NASA/Insider
NASA’s $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched to space in September 2016 with a simple, albeit ambitious, objective: travel to a distant asteroid and bring back a sample of it.
A mighty spacecraft is headed towards Earth, carrying rock and dust from a distant asteroid to hand off to eager scientists waiting to analyze the precious sample. The OSIRIS-REx mission recently fired its thrusters to set itself on a course towards the sample drop-off site, with its rendezvous on Earth scheduled for…