NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft has successfully touched down on asteroid Bennu on October 20, 2020, in what was described by scientists as a "historic" and…
NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) has successfully descended down to just 75 m (246 feet) above the surface asteroid Bennu in a risky rehearsal to prepare the spacecraft before it collects…
OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s asteroid sample return spacecraft successfully used Earth’s gravity on Friday, September 22, 2017 to slingshot itself on a path toward the Asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August. The spacecraft came within 17 237 km (10 711…
The University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission will utilize the data collected during its two-year long mission to the Bennu asteroid in an attempt to search for elusive Earth-Trojan asteroids. Trojan asteroids accompany the planets during their journey around the…
NASA's first-ever asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer), was launched September 8, 2016 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft thus started its two-year 193…
In September or early October 2016, NASA will launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will travel to the near-Earth…
Asteroid 2004 BL86, which made the closest approach to Earth on January 26, 2015 for the at least the next two centuries, is in fact a binary asteroid, meaning it has its own moon.Scientists working with NASA's Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California hav
Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs, cross our planet's orbit on a regular basis, but only a handful are large enough to pose a threat. One of these objects is asteroid 1999 RQ36, a "leftover" from the formation of our solar system four-and-a-half billion…
