1 of 3 | NASA will unveil the Bennu asteroid sample taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft during a live stream Wednesday morning. NASA Photo by Keegan Barber/UPI | License Photo
NASA Wednesday morning will unveil the first U.S. asteroid sample collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
The space agency is set to reveal the sample in a live stream from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston scheduled for 11 a.m. EDT, followed by a media teleconference where members of the OSIRIS-REx will answer questions about the sample at 2:30 p.m. EDT. Advertisement
On Sept. 24, NASA recovered a 250-gram dust sample from the Bennu asteroid, marking the first sample return of its kind in America and concluding the seven-year OSIRIS-REx mission.
The sample has since been kept under a “nitrogen purge,” connected to a continuous flow of nitrogen to keep it pure of “earthly contaminants.”
“Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid, and what we learn from the sample will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could come our way,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said when the sample was recovered.
The spacecraft that collected the asteroid sample was launched in 2016 and traveled an estimated 3.86 billion miles before it first landed on the Bennu asteroid in 2020.
OSIRIS-REx travels next to the asteroid Apophis. Advertisement
The Johnson Space Center is home to the world’s largest collection of astromaterials under one roof. It includes samples from Mars, the moon, sun, asteroids and comets.
