Asteroid Bennu Sample Delivered

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Video imagery:

·       Animation of OSIRIS-Rex delivering asteroid Bennu sample to Earth: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

·       Photo montage of Bennu sample capsule recovery: NASA/Keegan Barber

·       3D model of asteroid Bennu: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

·       Animation of OSIRIS-Rex returning to Earth: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

·       Photo, Bennu sample capsule: NASA/Keegan Barber

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Text, News From the Universe. 

 

September 29, 2023. Asteroid Bennu Sample Delivered. 

 

After traveling billions of miles across the solar system and back, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission successfully delivered a sample from asteroid Bennu to Earth on September 24, 2023. 

 

The sample capsule was transported to a clean room and subjected to a "nitrogen purge" to avoid contamination with material from Earth. Nitrogen gas does not interact with most other chemicals. 

 

Scientists want to be sure they are studying pure asteroid material in the sample, because it is understood to be a relic of raw material from the formation of the Solar System. 

 

The mission is part of the larger endeavor to answer the question, "How did we get here?" How did the Solar System develop into the only known home to life in the universe? 

 

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The sample canister will be opened at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. 

 

The asteroid sample will be examined and eventually pieces will be distributed to scientists worldwide. 

 

This news was brought to you in part by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.