NASA spacecraft to grab an asteroid sample

This Aug 11, 2020 photo shows the sampling arm of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft during a rehearsal for an approach to the"Nightingale" sample site on the surface of the asteroid Bennu. WASHINGTON: A NASA probe orbiting an asteroid over 100 million miles from Earth will make a perilous attempt on Tuesday to snatch a sample from the celestial body’s rocky surface to bring home the space agency’s first handful of pristine asteroid rocks.

"A lot of things could go wrong because the spacecraft's about the size of a van, and the asteroid has a lot of boulders in it,” Lucy Lim, a planetary scientist at NASA, said. “So we have to go between the boulders to get our sample, and a lot of planning went into that.” If successful, ground controllers will confirm capture of Bennu remnants a few hours after the attempt. That will allow the spacecraft to start its journey back toward Earth arriving in 20230 to return the first US cache of pristine asteroid rocks. Japan is the only other country to accomplish this before.

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