NASA Mission Returns With Asteroid Sample [VIDEO]

The New York Times reports:

A brown-and-white capsule that spent the last seven years swooping through the solar system — and sojourning at an asteroid — has finally come home. And it has brought a cosmic souvenir: a cache of space rock that scientists are hungry to get their hands on.

On Sunday morning, those scientists waited eagerly as the pod shot through Earth’s atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour. It gently parachuted down into the muddy landscape of the Utah Test and Training Range, about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, at 8:52 a.m. local time.

The capsule’s landing is a major win for a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REX. The spacecraft set out in 2016 to retrieve material from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid about 190 feet wider than the height of the Empire State Building.

Read the full article.

Touchdown! The #OSIRISREx asteroid sample has landed on Earth. Chills. Tears. High-fives. Joyful jumps. https://t.co/2cdjMdFTuy pic.twitter.com/9eoXXT38qH

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) September 24, 2023

After releasing its capsule into Earth’s atmosphere, our #OSIRISREx spacecraft takes on a new journey to asteroid Apophis, for a close-up look at an S-type (stony) asteroid. The extended mission is named OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer). https://t.co/ZlgnIju88v pic.twitter.com/XCCudemazv

— NASA (@NASA) September 24, 2023

BREAKING: A space capsule carrying NASA’s first asteroid samples fetched from deep space has parachuted into the Utah desert after a seven-year journey. Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from a carbon-rich asteroid. https://t.co/NllgIdGaPP

— The Associated Press (@AP) September 24, 2023