Sample Return

OSIRIS-REx’s Final Haul: 121.6 Grams from Asteroid Bennu

After several months of meticulous, careful work, NASA has the final total for their haul of asteroidal material from the…

1 month ago

Finally, Let’s Look at the Asteroid Treasure Returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx

NASA's OSIRIS-REx delivered its precious cargo to Earth on September 24th, 2023. The sample from asteroid Bennu is contained inside…

2 months ago

OSIRIS-REx Returned Carbon and Water from Asteroid Bennu

Carbon and water are so common on Earth that they're barely worth mentioning. But not if you're a scientist. They…

6 months ago

Watch OSIRIS-REx Release its Sample Capsule

Most of the spacecraft we send out into the Solar System are never meant to return. Time, space, and entropy…

6 months ago

We Can Only Bring 30 Samples of Mars Back to Earth. How Do We Decide?

The Mars Sample Return Mission is one of the most ambitious missions ever conceived. Though the samples won't be returned…

11 months ago

Fly Around Jezero Crater on Mars in This New Video

There’s a reason Jezero Crater was chosen as the landing site for the Perseverance Rover: it is considered one of…

1 year ago

Perseverance is Building Up a Big Collection of Mars Samples

NASA's Perseverance Rover has reached another milestone. It's finished caching its samples for a potential return to Earth. The sample…

1 year ago

Don’t Bother Trying to Destroy Rubble Pile Asteroids

The asteroids in our Solar System are survivors. They've withstood billions of years of collisions. The surviving asteroids are divided…

1 year ago

Perseverance Takes a Selfie to Show off Some of its Samples

One of the main jobs for the Perseverance Mars rover past few weeks has been collecting carefully selected samples of…

1 year ago

Perseverance is Putting its Samples Onto the Surface of Mars, So a Future Helicopter can Pick Them Up

At this point in its mission, NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover has collected almost 50% of its samples. The rover is…

1 year ago