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Another major milestone unfolds with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in 2016 to gather samples from asteroid Bennu — a body estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. The mission aimed to retrieve pristine material from the asteroid, providing insight into the early solar system and possibly the origins of life.
On September 24th, OSIRIS-REx successfully dispatched a capsule containing a sample of Bennu back to Earth. The capsule landed safely in the Utah desert, marking a historic achievement in planetary science. Scientists believe that the material inside may serve as a cosmic time capsule, offering invaluable data about the conditions during the formation of our solar system.