NASA's first effort to retrieve samples from an asteroid will send a capsule that contains extraterrestrial pebbles and dust plunging towards a Utah desert on Sunday.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid, directly altering its path through space. Scientists are still studying the space rock to learn more.
There was no reason for alarm, as a NASA engineer called it "one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded." It was only 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface.
NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of planetary defense. Now it will determine whether the mission was able to alter the asteroid's course.
A NASA spacecraft sent out to collect rocks from an asteroid seems to have nabbed a lot of material, but there's now an unexpected problem — a flap isn't closing because some rocks are stuck.
NASA has collected and is returning its first sample from an asteroid. The rocks and dust could help us understand potentially dangerous space rocks and the history of the solar system.