REx sample return capsule contained rock from the asteroid Bennu. NASA/Keegan Barber Mary Magnuson, Collecting asteroid samples China’s Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return mission is set to launch this ...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission traveled to the carbon-rich asteroid Bennu and sent home a small capsule containing a sample in September 2023.

In May 2021, OSIRIS-REx began its journey back to Earth carrying dust from Bennu - a rubble-pile asteroid older than Earth itself. When the capsule was opened in 2023, scientists were stunned by ...

A spacecraft's sample return capsule was detected entering the Earth's atmosphere using acoustic sensors by a team of scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Colorado State University.

Life on Earth relies on molecular building blocks to make DNA and proteins. Scientists have long wondered how prevalent these precursors were at the birth of our solar system. A sample of dust and ...

Two exciting new studies detail the life-supporting contents of a 4.3-ounce sample of the asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023, and these ...

The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the Department of ...

A view of the OSIRIS-REx sample canister, containing material from asteroid Bennu, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

A portion of the asteroid Bennu sample delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, set into a microscope slide at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: Molly ...

Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried over thousands of years and life’s basic ingredients were widespread.

Samples of asteroid Bennu contain molecules that suggest the "conditions necessary for life" were widespread across the early solar system, according to NASA.