This weekend will see the landing of NASA's first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, and telescopes on the ground have been able to track it.
This weekend will see the landing of NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx. The spacecraft visited asteroid Bennu to study, photograph, and scoop up a sample from it, and now OSIRIS-REx is on it’s way back to Earth and is almost here.
As the spacecraft approaches, telescopes on the ground have been able to track it, even though the craft is just a few meters across — or about the size of a van. This week, an image was released by the European Space Agency from its Optical Ground Station telescope in Tenerife, Spain, showing the incoming spacecraft.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
OSIRIS-REx probe spotted returning asteroid sample to Earth (photo)A ground-based telescope captured a shot of OSIRIS-REx on Sept. 16, eight days before its sample delivery.
Read more »
OSIRIS-REx is about to fling samples of the asteroid Bennu at EarthNASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is about to hurtle past Earth, and if all goes well it will drop its samples from the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert on 24 September
Read more »
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Is About to Bring Asteroid Pieces Back to EarthThe OSIRIS-REx probe is carrying rock samples from the asteroid Bennu, millions of miles away. If it works, it will be only the third such retrieval in history.
Read more »
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is poised to return bits of the asteroid Bennu to EarthAsteroid dirt from Bennu could help reveal clues about the material that came together to make the solar system — and possibly where life comes from.
Read more »
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Makes Final Course Adjustment Before Asteroid Sample DeliveryNASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its thrusters to adjust its trajectory to refine its sample capsule's landing location on Earth, set for September 24, targeting the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range. On September 17, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx engineers slightly shifted the spacecraft’s
Read more »
Who will get OSIRIS-REx's asteroid samples after they land this weekend?70% of the sample will be preserved 'for study by scientists not yet born, using technologies not yet invented.'
Read more »