Sit back, zoom in, and enjoy the beauty of the beginnings of our solar system.
The final portion of asteroid material collected by our OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been revealed, and this super high-resolution image allows you to zoom in and admire every detail of the rocks and dust from Bennu.
You are seeing particles from a planetary body millions of miles from Earth and more than four billion years old. Each grain could hold knowledge that will help us unlock the secrets of how our solar system formed. From carbon to amino acids and even serpentine water-bearing clay minerals, this is just the beginning for our studies of asteroid Bennu.
The curation team at
@NASA_Johnson in Houston is nearing the end of disassembling the TAGSAM (Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head, after which the final bits of asteroid material will be weighed, containerized, and stored as part of the most extensive astromaterials collection in the world for scientists now and generations from now.
Credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold
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