16th September – OSIRIS-REX: The journey to Bennu and back – Dr Sarah Crowther

16th September 2024

OSIRIS-REx: The journey to Bennu and back

Dr Sarah Crowther

OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first sample return mission to as asteroid, launched in September 2016 on a 7 year round trip to collect a sample from asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth for detailed analysis.

The spacecraft delivered its precious cargo to Earth on 24^th September 2023.

The Curation and Sample Analysis Teams have been hard at work for almost a year, with initial characterisation and analysis of the pristine, 4.6 billion year old samples.  

In this talk, Dr Sarah Crowther, Research Fellow in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Manchester, will give an overview of the OSIRIS-REx mission, and talk about some of the initial findings that have been published by the team.

Background:

 https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/university-of-manchester-to-receive-and-study-sample-of-asteroid-bennu-as-part-of-nasas-osiris-rex-mission/

https://www.asteroidmission.org