CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA in the end has counted up all of the asteroid samples returned through a spacecraft final fall — and it’s double the rubble go back purpose.Officers reported Thursday that the Osiris-Rex spacecraft accrued 121.6 grams (4.29 oz) of mud and pebbles from asteroid Bennu. That’s simply over part a cup and the largest cosmic haul ever from past the moon.It took NASA longer than anticipated to pry open the pattern container on account of caught fasteners.The pattern go back pill from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx project in a while after touching down within the wasteland, on Sept. 24, 2023, on the Division of Protection’s Utah Take a look at and Coaching Vary. Keegan Barber / NASAThe black, carbon-rich samples — the primary ever accrued from an asteroid through NASA — are saved at a unique curation lab at Houston’s Johnson Area Heart.RecommendedOsiris-Rex returned the samples final September, 3 years after collecting them from the asteroid. The haul for the $1 billion project would were higher, however rocks jammed the lid of the container following the seize and a few samples floated away.The spacecraft is now on its solution to some other house rock, however that may contain just a flyby without a forestall for samples.OSIRIS REx curation workforce pouring the pattern from the TAGSAM head and analyzing pattern subject material, on Jan. 19. Robert Markowitz / NASA-JSCThe Related PressThe Related Press
