NASA’s OSIRIS-REx to bring samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth: What to know

A space capsule carrying a sample of rocky material removed from the surface of an asteroid three years ago is expected to make a parachute landing in the Utah desert on Sunday.

If successful, the OSIRIS-REx mission, a joint effort between NASA and scientists at the University of Arizona, would mark the third asteroid sample, and by far the largest, ever returned to Earth for analysis..

SIRIS-REx collected its samples from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid, before embarking on a 1.9-billion-km (1.2-billion-mile) journey back to Earth in May 2021.