by NASA scientists have finally tallied how much material a spacecraftsnatched from a distant "potentially hazardous" asteroid, and it turns out they've got more than double what they expected.
The sample — roughly 4.3 ounces (122 grams) of rocky space rubble that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected from the asteroid Bennu — could contain some of the earliest precursors for life and is the first space rock ever retrieved by a NASA mission.
After landing in the Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023, the OSIRIS-REx capsule was taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where scientists began working to disassemble it — which proved trickier than many anticipated.
Two of the capsule's 35 fasteners got stuck, forcing NASA researchers to initially only collect about 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of sample resting on the lid of the canister.
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The sample — roughly 4.3 ounces (122 grams) of rocky space rubble that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected from the asteroid Bennu — could contain some of the earliest precursors for life and is the first space rock ever retrieved by a NASA mission.
After landing in the Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023, the OSIRIS-REx capsule was taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where scientists began working to disassemble it — which proved trickier than many anticipated.
Two of the capsule's 35 fasteners got stuck, forcing NASA researchers to initially only collect about 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of sample resting on the lid of the canister.
Source
