A saucer-shaped capsule parachuted down gently in the Utah desert today, after a years-long journey through space. Its cargo is a precious collection of rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu — the first time NASA has ever brought pieces of this type of celestial object back to Earth.
Meanwhile, the rest of the OSIRIS spacecraft continues to fly through space after dropping off its sample-return capsule. It is headed to study Apophis, an asteroid with a different, ‘stony’, chemical composition that will whizz dramatically close past Earth in 2029.
Biggest ever? Isn’t it the first?
Supposedly it’s the third and this time they brought back 250g vs like 5g.
I knew I had read it’s the first, so looked it up - it’s the first US asteroid sample return mission. Here’s the Wikipedia that has all of the same returns of any kind, including the moon missions. The US has the manned moon missions, of course, and a comet sample return. Japan had the prior two asteroid sample missions.
I’m excited.
