Osiris-rex Mission

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  Bennu Asteroid Sample Reveals Organic Compounds That May Hint at Life Beyond Earth

  NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has delivered a sample from asteroid Bennu, revealing amino acids, nucleobases, ammonia, and minerals formed in saltwater. These organic compounds, vital to life, suggest that the building blocks for life might have existed in other regions of the early solar system. The discovery of evaporite minerals, including halite ...

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  Organic Molecules in Space: A Key to Understanding Life's Cosmic Origins

  Organic molecules, the building blocks of life, have been discovered across space—from interstellar clouds to asteroids and comets. Findings from missions like Rosetta, Hayabusa2, and Osiris-Rex reveal that these compounds existed long before the Sun formed. Scientists believe organic molecules survived planetary formation in protoplanetary disks...

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  Asteroid Bennu Examines Potential Fifth Force and Dark Matter Connection

  Research on asteroid Bennu reveals no evidence of a potential fifth force that could explain dark matter. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission tracked Bennu’s orbit with exceptional accuracy, allowing scientists to examine for subtle deviations. This study provides insight into the unknown forces in the universe and suggests that further investigation of ...

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  Origins Of Life On Earth: 4.5 Billion-Year-Old Asteroid Holds Clues

  Scientists are hopeful that fragments from a 4.5-billion-year-old space rock will reveal the origins of our existence.

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  NASA Unable To Remove Remaining Asteroid Sample From Container, Working On New Ways

  There are more samples to collect, however, the teams at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) are now struggling to open the canister.

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  NASA Unveils Newly Returned Carbon-Rich Asteroid Sample

  NASA on Wednesday gave the public a first glimpse of what scientists found inside a sealed capsule that was returned to Earth last month carrying a carbon-rich soil sample scooped from an asteroid's surface, including water-bearing clay minerals. A small quantity of the material collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago from the near-E...

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  NASA's Historic Asteroid Space Probe Set To Return To Earth After 7 Years

  NASA's first mission to retrieve an asteroid sample and return it to US is expected to reach a perilous finale on Sunday with a descent into the Utah desert. Scientists hope the material will help understand the formation of solar system.

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  NASA Spacecraft Successfully Gets Sample From Asteroid Bennu

  NASA said Thursday its robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex was able to stow a rock and dust sample scooped up from the asteroid Bennu, after a flap that had wedged open put the mission at risk.

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  NASA Prepares OSIRIS-REx to Safely Store Leaking Asteroid Samples

  NASA's robotic spacecraft OSIRIS-REx is set to begin a new mission to store the particles it scooped up from the asteroid Bennu’s surface which were slowly leaking into space because a flap got wedged open.

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  NASA Probe Osiris-Rex "Kisses" Asteroid Bennu In Historic Mission

  After a four-year journey, NASA's robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex briefly touched down on asteroid Bennu's boulder-strewn surface on Tuesday to collect rock and dust samples in a precision operation 200 million miles (330 million kilometers) from Earth.

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  NASA Probe OSIRIS-Rex Set To "Kiss" Asteroid Bennu In Historic Mission

  After a four-year journey, NASA's robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex will descend to asteroid Bennu's boulder-strewn surface on Tuesday, touching down for a few seconds to collect rock and dust samples in a precision operation 200 million miles (330 million kilometers) from Earth.

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  NASA Selects a Sample Collection Site on Asteroid Bennu

  After grappling with the rugged reality of asteroid Bennu's surface, NASA has finally selected a sample collection site on asteroid Bennu.

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  NASA Mission Picks 4 Sites for Asteroid Bennu Sample Return

  Since its arrival in December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has mapped the entire asteroid.

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  NASA Says Taking Sample From Asteroid Harder Than Expected

  After two years crossing the solar system, the NASA space probe Osiris-Rex arrived last December near the asteroid Bennu to complete its mission of collecting a sample -- but touching the rock will prove much harder than scientists had expected.

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  NASA's Sampling Probe Mission Snaps Picture Of Asteroid Bennu

  NASA's first asteroid-sampling mission OSIRIS-REx, which went into orbit around asteroid Bennu on New Year's Eve, has captured incredible photographs of the smallest ever celestial body to be orbited by a spacecraft.