The largest sample collected from an asteroid in space, and the first for NASA, landed in the Utah desert on 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. The one-billion-mile journey to asteroid Bennu and back is complete,” a commentator said on NASA’s live video webcast of the landing.
The sample collected from Bennu in 2020 is estimated by the US space agency to contain about 250 grams (nine ounces) of the material, much more than the previous two asteroid samples brought back by the Japanese mission.
