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
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
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
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
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
About a month ago, pristine samples from an asteroid landed on Earth while enclosed within a tight capsule. The sample canister was designed to keep the main chunk of the asteroid safe during its journey through space, but now teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) are struggling to open it to get at the … Read more
A new way to view the Sun A new way to view the Sun Scientists adapted a camera on the Solar Orbiter probe to investigate seldom-seen areas of the Sun’s atmosphere. By modifying the Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) with a clever hack, they managed to block the overpowering light from the Sun, highlighting … Read more
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to Earth to drop off rocky samples from asteroid Bennu on Sunday, marking NASA’s first attempt to retrieve a piece of a pure space rock. Vizio’s Latest TVs Go All Quantum The highly-anticipated drop-off has been seven years in the making, but the wait is finally over. OSIRIS-REx … Read more