--- title: "Watch NASA’s Spacecraft Touch Down on a Tiny Asteroid" description: "NASA has finally released footage from when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched down on asteroid Bennu's surface to collect a bunch of space rocks." date: "2020-10-22" modified: "2020-10-22" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/watch-nasa-spacecraft-touch-down-asteroid" categories: - "NASA" - "Science & Energy" - "Space" tags: - "asteroid" - "bennu" - "NASA" - "osiris-rex" - "the digest" --- # Watch NASA’s Spacecraft Touch Down on a Tiny Asteroid ![NASA has finally released footage from when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched down on asteroid Bennu's surface to collect a bunch of space rocks.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Touchdown Confirmed NASA has finally released footage from a truly epic moment: the agency's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touching down on asteroid Bennu's surface to scoop up a bunch of space rocks. Years have led up to this moment. Finally, on Tuesday, the spacecraft made its careful approach to [go in for a bite](). The tiny spacecraft spent two years orbiting Bennu, an asteroid 500 meters across, which was more than 200 million miles away from Earth at the time. https://twitter.com/osirisrex/status/1319024328126664706?s=21 ## Kicking Up Rocks OSIRIS-REx only touched the surface of the space rock for about six seconds, according to NASA, near the [Nightingale crater](), a crater about 66 feet across near Bennu's north pole. "Bottom line is from analysis of the images that we’ve gotten down so far, is that the sampling event went really well, as good as we could have imagined it would," principal investigator Dante Lauretta said during a press conference following the touchdown. "And I think the chances that there’s material inside \[...\] have gone way up way up based on the analysis of the images." ## Mission Nightingale The OSIRIS-REx team chose the site because prior scans showed a variety of rocky surface materials. Scientists also believe the rocks are relatively young at the crater compared to the rest of the asteroid, meaning that a sample could give them the best insights into Bennu's history. Immediately following the collection maneuver, the spacecraft burned its boosters to back away and gain a safe distance. While it was an incredible feat for NASA to pull off, it's not the first time a space agency has collected samples from an asteroid. The Japanese space agency's Hayabusa spacecraft became the first to do so in 2010 when it sampled a few micrograms of material from the Itokawa asteroid. **READ MORE:** [Stunning images show NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft stirring up rocks on an asteroid]() \[*The Verge*\] **More on the mission:** *[For the First Time In Its History, NASA Successfully Collects Sample From Asteroid]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()