NASA says images suggest 'success' in asteroid sample collection

WASHINGTON – The U.S. space agency said Wednesday that it likely succeeded in collecting samples through a spacecraft touchdown on asteroid Bennu a day earlier, based on images that captured the activities. "Everything that we can see from these initial images indicates sampling success," Dante Lauretta, a University of Arizona scientist who leads NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, told an online news conference, although noting that verification activities will continue. As part of the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Tuesday unfurled its robotic arm to touch the surface of Bennu for six seconds, according to NASA. Images unveiled Wednesday showed the disk-shaped sample collector attached at the end of the arm making contact with the surface of the asteroid and crushing some rocks underneath it. The collector, which is 30 centimeters in diameter, then fired nitrogen gas to stir up and lift rocks and dust for capture.