Nasa retrieves the largest asteroid sample ever brought back to Earth

The largest sample ever collected from an asteroid in space, and the first for NASA, landed in the Utah desert seven years after the mission's launch. A NASA team retrieves the Osiris-Rex sample return capsule at a base of the Utah Test.

On Monday, the sample heads to Johnson Space Center in Houston for additional study and NASA plans to announce its first results at a news conference October 11.Most of the sample will be conserved for study by future generations. Roughly one-fourth will be immediately used in experiments, and a small amount will be sent to mission partners Japan and Canada.

Japan had earlier given NASA a few grains from asteroid Ryugu, after bringing 0.2 ounces of dust to Earth in 2020 during the Hayabusa-2 mission. Ten years before, it had brought back a microscopic quantity from another asteroid.