NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to return samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ...

NASA Planetary Scientist Noah Petro dishes on what it took plan the impressive touch-and-go return mission, why much of the sample will be preserved for future generations of humanity, the best-case ...

The Osiris Rex spacecraft, now called Osiris Apex, which collected this extraordinary sample, is now aiming at a new target. It's on a path to rendezvous with the Apophis asteroid when it whizzes ...

Scientists simulated what would happen if a medium-size asteroid were to strike Earth. One of those space rocks, asteroid Bennu, has a 1-in-2,700 chance of hitting Earth in the year 2182.

In 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu and scientists got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have ...

The OSIRIS-REx mission collected a sample from the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 101955 Bennu, revealing its "rubble pile" structure and composition, including potential biogenic components. Bennu is ...

When the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft closely approached Bennu three years ago, it extended a Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head, or TAGSAM, toward the asteroid and fired a blast of nitrogen gas.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in 2016, successfully collected 120 grams of samples from Bennu in 2020 and delivered them to Earth in September 2023.

So, the OSIRIS‑REx mission ventured to the asteroid Bennu to retrieve an unaltered sample. Retrieving this sample allowed scientists to examine the asteroid’s composition in detail.

Bennu was the target for NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampling mission, which touched down briefly on the space rock in October 2020 to gather over 4 ounces of material, and then brought that sample ...