On 24 October 2023, a sample of an asteroid successfully landed on planet Earth, returned by a spacecraft that had launched 7 years prior
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission delivered the sample of Asteroid Bennu to a region of the US Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.
The capsule of spacerocks and dust was collected by scientists and whisked off to a laboratory for safe storage.
Since that time, scientists, including those in the UK, have been analysing Asteroid Bennu samples to learn more about the formation and evolution of our Solar System.
But what can asteroids really tell us?
In this episode of the Radio Astronomy podcast, we spoke to Prof Sara Russell of the UK's Natural History Museum to find out how she is studying samples of Asteroid Bennu and what sample-return missions can teach us about the history of our Solar System.
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