162173 Ryugu

The prominent astrophysicist and musician Brian May is co-authoring a three-dimensional atlas of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, an 85-million-ton hunk of rock orbiting the Sun.Inspiration Behind Immortal Longings | io9 InterviewMay is co-authoring the book with Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona and the principal investigator of NASA and the university’s OSIRIS-REx mission. May is also part of the mission team.OSIRIS-REx saw a small spacecraft arrive at Bennu in 2018 and extract a sample of…

In October 2020, engineers landed a spacecraft on an asteroid 200 million miles (320 million km) from Earth and collected a rocky sample from its surface. But that wasn’t even the hardest part. Now the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way back to Earth to drop off that sample, with NASA rehearsingthe smoothest way to catch it without ruining the whole mission.The spacecraft has spent seven years in space and is now gearing up for its final, yet most challenging, task. OSIRIS-REx is on schedule to drop off a sample from…

Scientists have confirmed that organic molecules exist in samples taken from the asteroid Ryugu, adding credence to the idea that the ingredients for life came to Earth via meteorite and asteroid impacts.Ryugu is a primitive carbonaceous asteroid, a rocky remnant from the formation of the solar system over 4 billion years ago. Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission visited Ryugu and collected samples from its surface in 2019, providing us with a great way of learning what the solar system was like in its early stages.A team of…

The doomed Epsilon-6 rocket launching from the the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan. Photo: Kyodo (AP)The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, destroyed its Epsilon-6 rocket mid-flight on Tuesday, resulting in the loss of eight commercial satellites that were included in the rideshare mission, local media reported.JAXA sent out the self-destruct command to the solid-fuel rocket after space agency officials noted that the rocket was deviating from its proper trajectory and would not complete its mission. It’s the…