NASA reveals its total asteroid haul from ambitious space mission

After months struggling to open NASA’s asteroid sample canister, agency scientists finally know how much dust and rock its spacecraft brought back to Earth. Despite earlier estimates that it scooped about a cup of material from Bennu, an ancient space rock the length of the Empire State Building, the total weight of the sample is … Read more

NASA’s Asteroid Samples May Be Crumbs From an Ancient Ocean World

After months of frustration, NASA finally got the Bennu asteroid sample container open in January, revealing the large amounts of asteroid scooped up by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Now, a top member of the mission says the distant hunk of space rock may be a planetesimal—a planet’s building block—that once belonged to an ocean world. ‘More … Read more

NASA Needs Ideas to Study Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Apophis

Asteroid 99942 Apophis is fast approaching our home planet for an uncomfortably close encounter in 2029. In order to prepare for the rare event, NASA is calling for ideas for low cost missions to rendezvous with Apophis, but the space agency already has a pair of asteroid probes ready to take on the task. This … Read more

NASA finally opened its prized asteroid canister, and you can look inside

Inside Building 31 at Johnson Space Center, NASA scientists have opened the metal canister holding rocks the agency plucked off a distant asteroid. NASA has spent months trying to release two “stubborn” fasteners on the canister’s lid, which was no easy feat. The asteroid receptacle, after parachuting down to Earth from outer space, has been … Read more

NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX Brushes the Sun on Its Way to New Asteroid Target

New mission, who dis? The spacecraft formerly known as OSIRIS-REx had an impromptu close encounter with the Sun as it follows a newly crafted route to a second asteroid, using one of its solar arrays for shade. Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox Controller You may remember NASA’s diligent spacecraft that snagged a sample from an … Read more

National Lab simulates Armageddon-style nuclear asteroid deflection

As if last year’s fabulous Dual Asteroid Redirection Test firing a satellite bullet into an asteroid wasn’t enough, now researchers are doing detailed simulation of the nuclear deflection scenario envisioned in 1998 space disaster film Armageddon. At Lawrence Livermore National Lab, a team led by Mary Burkey (above) presented a paper that moves the ball … Read more

It’s Been 2 Months. Why Can’t NASA Open the Asteroid Sample Container?

In September, fragments of a near-Earth asteroid were carefully dropped off in the Utah desert. The space rocks hold clues to the origin of the solar system and can possibly answer crucial questions about how our planet came to be—if only we can get to them first. Google’s AI Isn’t a Gimmick, It’s the Future … Read more

Asteroid’s Surprise Moon Is Two Rocks Stuck Together

The first look at the Dinkinesh asteroid revealed a surprise: The small space rock had its own moon. Now as the Lucy spacecraft downlinked more images of its first target, it showed not one but two tiny asteroids orbiting around Dinkinesh. The New M3-Powered iMacs Are Triggering Serious Deja Vu NASA’s Lucy mission made a … Read more

Bennu Asteroid Samples May ‘Fundamentally’ Shift Views of Life

We’ve all been there: You’re getting some peanut butter, or looking to nosh a nice pickle, when you find your wrist strength is insufficient to get at the jar’s delicious contents. That’s more or less NASA’s vexing issue with the OSIRIS-REx asteroid samples—though, of course, that canister’s contents aren’t for eating. The M3 MacBook Pro: … Read more

NASA spacecraft has high-speed asteroid encounter and finds surprise

NASA sent a spacecraft to probe our solar system’s most mysterious asteroids. The mission has now beamed back its first close-up views. The space agency’s Lucy mission is en route to the never-explored Trojan asteroids — trapped in swarms around Jupiter and thought to be pristinely-preserved building blocks of planets — and just zoomed by … Read more