Missions that return asteroid samples bring home more than just very expensive dust. These samples can provide valuable insights for scientists and commercial interests.
Articles on Bennu
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Water-rich meteorites contain key ingredients for life, yet they barely appear in meteorite collections. Recent research using shooting stars may explain why.
Two new studies show a briny, carbon-rich environment on the parent body of the Bennu asteroid was suitable for assembling the building blocks of life.
New findings reveal that a NASA mission traveled to an asteroid that may have once been covered in salty lakes containing organic molecules.
The mission provided details about how to deflect an asteroid should one threaten Earth in future.
In September 2023, a NASA mission successfully brought samples of an asteroid down to Earth in a sealed capsule. Analysis of these samples may reveal information about the origins of the universe.
Some space rocks you can get for free – if you know how to identify them. Rarer materials cost more, and the asteroid sample NASA just brought back has a high price tag.
Studying the sample could help answer how water arrived on Earth and how life started.
Controlled experiments are impossible in astronomy, as are direct measurements of physical properties of objects outside our solar system. So how do astronomers know so much about them?
NASA has only mapped 40% of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could crash into Earth. New projects will boost that number, and upcoming missions will test tech that could prevent collisions.
OSIRIS-REx will touch down on asteroid Bennu, collect a sample of the dust and begin its journey back to Earth, where scientists will study it, hoping to learn secrets of the solar system’s origin.
The first humans to land on the Moon, and the team that got them there, get all the glory. But what about the people who laid the foundation for this effort by mapping the Moon? Who were they?
The source of water on Earth, the Moon and planets in our solar system is hotly debated. Some in the planetary science community argued that it came from asteroids and comets. Now they have proof.
Top contributors
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Professor of Planetary Sciences, Natural History Museum
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Supervisory Research Geologist, Smithsonian Institution
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PhD, Earth and Planetary Science and Exploration, Western University
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Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Ithaca College
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Professor of Planetary Sciences and Geosciences, University of Arizona
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Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University
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Professor of Practice for Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Senior Vice President for Research & Innovation, University of Arizona
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Space Projects Manager & Mission Design Lead, University of Portsmouth
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Assistant Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University
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Associate Professor, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University
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Associate Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Curtin University
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Postdoctoral Fellow in Planetary Sciences, NASA
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Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
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Senior R&D Scientist, Physics, Sandia National Laboratories