Skip to main content

NASA successfully scoops up a sample from asteroid Bennu

NASA has succeeded in collecting a sample from an asteroid for the first time, scooping up rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu using its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched down on asteroid Bennu on Tuesday, October 20, marking the first time that NASA has touched an asteroid in this manner. During the touchdown, the spacecraft fired a burst of nitrogen gas down toward the asteroid in order to throw up soil and small rocks which were to be collected by the probe’s Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head. The aim was to collect at least 2 ounces (60 grams) to sample.

Recommended Videos

The NASA team had to wait a few days to learn if this sample collection had been successful. And now the news has come in, and it looks good — at least 2 ounces have been scooped up.

There’s a slight challenge though. When looking at images of the spacecraft, the OSIRIS-REx team noticed that some of the sample particles seem to be escaping from the sample collector into space. Small amounts of material are passing through a gap in the mylar flap which acts as the collector’s lid, as it is wedged open by larger rocks.

“We are working to keep up with our own success here, and my job is to safely return as large a sample of Bennu as possible,” Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in a statement. “The loss of mass is of concern to me, so I’m strongly encouraging the team to stow this precious sample as quickly as possible.”

The team will now work to secure the sample and try not to jiggle the spacecraft any more than necessary to avoid losing any more. The next phase is for the sample to be stowed in the Sample Return Capsule, which can keep any loose material in place while it is brought back to Earth for study.

“Bennu continues to surprise us with great science and also throwing a few curveballs,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said in the statement. “And although we may have to move more quickly to stow the sample, it’s not a bad problem to have. We are so excited to see what appears to be an abundant sample that will inspire science for decades beyond this historic moment.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
What happened when NASA simulated an asteroid hitting Earth
An artist's impression of an asteroid approaching Earth

An artist's impression of an asteroid approaching Earth NASA

What would happen if a huge asteroid were headed toward Earth? Though this might be the topic of innumerable Hollywood movies, it's also a real concern for space agencies like NASA and its Planetary Defense Coordination Office. This is the department responsible for organizing NASA's response to a potentially deadly threat from the skies, and earlier this year it ran the world's most dramatic role-play, simulating what would happen if a dangerous asteroid were spotted on a collision course with the planet.

Read more
Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms
The International Space Station.

A regular stanchion (left) and the one recovered from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount International Space Station batteries on a cargo pallet. The recovered stanchion survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and impacted a home in Florida. NASA

When Alejandro Otero’s son called him on March 8 to say that something had crashed through the roof of their home, he initially thought it might have been a meteorite.

Read more
Asteroid impacted by spacecraft is reshaped like an M&M ‘with a bite taken out’
An illustration shows a spacecraft from NASA's DART mission approaching the asteroid it was intended to redirect.

In 2022, the world watched with fascination as NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of what kind of defense options might be available to humanity if an incoming asteroid ever threatened Earth. Observers could tell very quickly that the test, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART, was successful in changing the asteroid's orbit. But now astronomers have learned more, finding that the impact may have reshaped the asteroid significantly.

The asteroid impacted, called Dimorphos, is very small at around 500 feet across, and the DART spacecraft crashed into it at a tremendous speed of nearly 4 miles per second. Researchers have now used computer modeling to see the effects of this impact, given the limited amount of information we have on the composition and uneven surface of Dimorphos.

Read more