Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Samples of asteroid Bennu are now in vials for intensive study at the University of Arizona.
Image credit: Chris Richards/University of Arizona Communications

Scientists are now inspecting snagged, bagged and tagged bits and pieces from asteroid Bennu, the cosmic mother lode delivered by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer mission.

It’s known in acronymic astro-speak as OSIRIS-REx.

Scientists are now inspecting snagged, bagged and tagged bits and pieces from asteroid Bennu, the cosmic mother lode delivered to Earth last year by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer mission.

View of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with balky lid removed, unveiling the bulk of asteroid Bennu sample inside.
(Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebersold

Export control

I caught up with two leading scientists at the Univ. of Arizona’s “extraterrestrial export control central” now engaged in extracting what those darkish asteroid particles are illuminating, sorting out how these materials exported from Bennu came to be. But also what insights they hold for the origin of the worlds within our solar system, including Earth.

Go to my new Space.com story – “1st look at asteroid Bennu samples suggests space rock may even be ‘a fragment of an ancient ocean world’ – at:

https://www.space.com/asteroid-bennu-osiris-rex-samples-1st-look-surprises

Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator from the University of Arizona holds a mock up of the asteroid collection device – TAGSAM.
Image credit: Barbara David