In 2016, NASA embarked on a new and unique mission: sending the Osiris-REx spacecraft to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu to study the rocky space object and collect samples to return to ...

Analysing returned samples Tim McCoy (right), curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and research geologist Cari Corrigan examine scanning electron microscope ...

“Bennu contains many precursors to the building ... Comparing the sample return to meteorites in our Collection, using state-of-the-art analytical facilities here in the Museum, is invaluable ...