A space capsule carrying NASA’s first asteroid samples is streaking toward a touchdown in the Utah desert
Flying by Earth, the
released the capsule from 63,000 miles out. The capsule was expected to parachute down four hours later onto the military’s Utah Test and Training Range.from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu. About a teaspoon was returned by Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples.are believed to be the leftover building blocks from the dawn of our solar system and will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.
Osiris-Rex rocketed away on the $1 billion mission in 2016. It reached Bennu two years later and, using a long stick vacuum, grabbed dust and pebbles from the small roundish space rock in 2020. By the time it returned Sunday, the spacecraft had traveled 4 billion miles . Now free of the sample capsule, Osiris-Rex is already targeting another asteroid. That encounter won’t occur until 2029.
NASA’s recovery effort in Utah includes helicopters and a temporary clean room set up at the range. The samples will be flown Monday to a new lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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