The largest sample ever collected from an asteroid in space, and the first for NASA, landed in the Utah desert Sunday after a fiery final descent through Earth’s atmosphere, seven years after the mission’s launch.
“Touchdown of the Osiris-Rex sample return capsule. A journey of a billion miles to asteroid Bennu and back has come to an end,” a commentator said on NASA’s live video webcast of the landing.
The sample, collected in 2020 from Bennu, is estimated by the US space agency to contain some 250 grams (nine ounces) of material, far more than two previous asteroid specimens brought back by Japanese missions.