Scientists Can Detect Life in Single Grain of Alien Ice
Icy moons like Europa and Enceladus are exciting venues for the prospect of life beyond Earth, because they are thought to contain oceans of water beneath their frigid surfaces. Were…
NASA’s Asteroid Samples May Be Crumbs From an Ancient Ocean World
After months of frustration, NASA finally got the Bennu asteroid sample container open in January, revealing the large amounts of asteroid scooped up by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Now, a top…
It’s Been 2 Months. Why Can’t NASA Open the Asteroid Sample Container?
In September, fragments of a near-Earth asteroid were carefully dropped off in the Utah desert. The space rocks hold clues to the origin of the solar system and can possibly…
Bennu Asteroid Samples Expected to ‘Fundamentally’ Shift Our Perspective on Cosmic Life
We’ve all been there: You’re getting some peanut butter, or looking to nosh a nice pickle, when you find your wrist strength is insufficient to get at the jar’s delicious…
NASA Is Struggling to Open Its Asteroid Sample Container
About a month ago, pristine samples from an asteroid landed on Earth while enclosed within a tight capsule. The sample canister was designed to keep the main chunk of the…
After Delivery to Earth, What’s Next for NASA’s Asteroid Sample?
The sample return capsule after touching down at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on September 24, 2023.Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber Vizio’s Latest TVs Go All Quantum…
Watch Live as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Returns Asteroid Samples to Earth
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to Earth to drop off rocky samples from asteroid Bennu on Sunday, marking NASA’s first attempt to retrieve a piece of a pure…
Telescope Spots a Sample-Laden OSIRIS-REx Returning From Asteroid Bennu
NASA’s $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched to space in September 2016 with a simple, albeit ambitious, objective: travel to a distant asteroid and bring back a sample of it. The…
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Finds Preserved Organic Matter on Mars
Researchers poring over imagery and data from the Perseverance rover on Mars have found evidence of organic molecules in the planet’s Jezero Crater, potentially providing evidence of the planet’s carbon…