Bill Nye gives sendoff to NASA asteroid-sampling mission

A few special guests showed up to see the launch of NASA's asteroid-sampling spacecraft yesterday (Sept. Former TV "Science Guy" Bill Nye, who currently serves as CEO of The Planetary Society nonprofit organization, cheered on the OSIRIS-REx mission yesterday afternoon here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), just hours before the probe's 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) launch from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. OSIRIS-REx is now chasing down a 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) asteroid named Bennu, on a seven-year mission to snag samples of the space rock and send the material back to Earth. Bennu was known as 1999 RQ36 until 2013, when 9-year-old Mike Puzio won a Planetary Society contest to give the asteroid a more fitting and memorable name. Puzio, who is now 12, joined Nye at KSC yesterday in the lead-up to the launch.