Photos of touching down on an asteroid.
On Tuesday, October 20th, NASA made history when the OSIRIS-REx mission successfully completed a “touch-and-go” sample collection maneuver with asteroid 101955 Bennu over 200 million miles away from Earth. And now, we have the timelapse to prove it.
NASA shared a total of 82 images from spacecraft’s SamCam imager covering the approach, the touchdown at sample sight Nightingale, and the “back-away burn.” The slideshow was captured over the course of approximately five minutes, and covers everything from about 82 feet (25 meters) above the asteroid, through the back-away burn, and up until the craft achieved an altitude of approximately 43 feet (13 meters), kicking up a lot of material along the way.
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