Science
Video Shows NASA Probe’s Quick Landing on Asteroid Bennu – The New York Times
The spacecraft succeeded in pogo-sticking off the space rock, hinting that it may have been able to capture a large sample to bring back to Earth.
If by unlucky chance OSIRIS-REX came up short on Tuesday, it can try two more times. The next attempt would be at a backup site named Osprey in January.
The collection of the asteroid sample is the climax of the $800 million mission, which launched four years ago. The spacecraft has been making detailed observations of Bennu a rock as wide as the Empire State Building is tall for two years, mapping features of its surface as small as a couple of inches wide. It even discovered that Bennu was shooting…
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