NASA's OSIRIS-REx to bring samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth: What to know

A space capsule carrying a sample of rocky material removed from the surface of an asteroid three years ago is expected to make a parachute landing in the Utah desert on Sunday. If successful, the OSIRIS-REx mission, a joint effort between NASA and scientists at the University of Arizona, would mark the third asteroid sample, and by far the largest, ever returned to Earth for analysis. OSIRIS-REx collected its samples from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid, before embarking on a 1.9-billion-km (1.2-billion-mile) journey back to Earth in May 2021. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is an unmanned spacecraft from NASA that was sent to collect samples from Bennu. The spacecraft was equipped with cameras to capture images that were essential to collecting samples from the asteroid during the mission.