Asteroid material returning to Earth – will it be a gentle touch down or a crash? #NASA #asteroid

NASA has samples from the asteroid Bennu about to land on Earth on Sep 24th. The samples will definitively land, but will it be a crash, like a similar mission in 2004? Or a triumph?

Watch live on NASA’s You Tube channel:

The mission’s asteroid sample return capsule is currently projected to land on Sunday (Sept. 24) at 8:55 a.m. MDT (10:55 a.m. EDT, 1455 GMT) Watch a spacecraft deliver an asteroid sample to Earth! Our OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft is approaching Earth, and on Sept. 24, 2023, it will release its sample return capsule into the atmosphere on a path to land at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The touchdown will mark the end of a seven-year journey to explore asteroid Bennu, collect a sample from its surface, and deliver it to Earth as the U.S’s first pristine asteroid sample. Scientists around the world will study the sample over the coming decades to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth. For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/osiris-rex/in-depth/ There are some excellent videos covering the entire mission on the site.