NASA spacecraft begins 2-year trip home with asteroid rubble
With rubble from an asteroid tucked inside, a NASA spacecraft fired its engines and began the long journey back to Earth on Monday, leaving the ancient space rock in its rearview mirror.
With rubble from an asteroid tucked inside, a NASA spacecraft fired its engines and began the long journey back to Earth on Monday, leaving the ancient space rock in its rearview mirror.
Space Exploration
May 10, 2021
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A NASA spacecraft left a mark at an asteroid when it grabbed a load of rubble last year for return to Earth, new pictures revealed Thursday.
Space Exploration
Apr 16, 2021
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NASA's OSIRIS-REx completed its last flyover of Bennu around 6 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. MDT) April 7 and is now slowly drifting away from the asteroid; however, the mission team will have to wait a few more days to find out how the ...
Space Exploration
Apr 8, 2021
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NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is on the brink of discovering the extent of the mess it made on asteroid Bennu's surface during last fall's sample collection event. On Apr. 7, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will get one last close ...
Space Exploration
Apr 1, 2021
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On April 7, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will give asteroid Bennu one last glance before saying farewell. Before departing for Earth on May 10, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will perform a final flyby of Bennu—capturing its last ...
Space Exploration
Feb 9, 2021
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Since its launch in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled billions of miles, mapped the surface of an asteroid in unprecedented detail, and made new scientific discoveries about near-Earth asteroids. Now, ...
Space Exploration
Jan 27, 2021
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A Southwest Research Institute-led team of scientists has identified a potentially new meteorite parent asteroid by studying a small shard of a meteorite that arrived on Earth a dozen years ago. The composition of a piece ...
Astronomy
Dec 21, 2020
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A Japanese space mission will deliver samples collected from asteroid Ryugu in a capsule to the outback desert of Woomera in South Australia this Sunday morning.
Space Exploration
Dec 4, 2020
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NASA's University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission has successfully stowed the spacecraft's Sample Return Capsule and its abundant sample of asteroid Bennu. On Oct. 28, the mission team sent commands to the spacecraft, instructing ...
Space Exploration
Oct 30, 2020
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A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in the U.S., Canada and Italy has found that studying the craters on asteroid Bennu allowed them to calculate how long it has been orbiting near Earth. In their ...