The asteroid in question, named Bennu, was the focus of a very dreamy NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx that launched in 2016. The first goal of OSIRIS-REx was to blast a spacecraft toward the ...

The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023, and these studies show that it contains amino acids, nucleobases, and minerals known as evaporites—all elements of life’s ...

Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission recently delivered remarkable findings about asteroid 101955 Bennu after the mission returned its samples to Earth in 2023.

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 ...

This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 images taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from ... [+] a range of 15 miles. As wide as The Eiffel Tower is tall, the asteroid Bennu is a ...

In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-metre-wide asteroid 320 million kilometres from Earth.

Scientists detected all five nucleobases -- building blocks of DNA and RNA -- in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. Japanese collaborators detected all five ...

Dust and other debris would rise into the atmosphere on Bennu striking Earth, blocking out the Sun and cooling the planet to devastating effect.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will award its 2025 Michael Collins Trophy to Margaret Hamilton for Lifetime Achievement and the OSIRIS-REx Team for Current Achievement. These annual ...

The key to the new discovery was the pristine condition of the samples. Many of the salts present degrade quickly when exposed to the atmosphere. However, the samples collected on the OSIRIS-REx ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. While the odds of Bennu impacting Earth may sound alarming, they're not entirely unexpected ...