OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission

It's been an exciting year in astronomy, although every year is exciting! But the last two weeks have been of particular interest, starting with the November 26th landing of the InSight lander on Mars followed by the recent encounter of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft with the asteroid Bennu. On December 3, 2018, OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu and will now study the asteroid to better understand how objects formed in the Solar System. The first images are very cool!

Bennu - NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Okay, that is super cool! OSIRIS-REx will slowly get closer to the surface of the asteroid to fully map the surface and identify good spots to acquire a sample. At some point the spacecraft will briefly touchdown on the surface, acquire a sample, and return to Earth in September 2023. Again, super cool! 

Landing on Mars and now returning a sample from an asteroid. Astronomy and space exploration is awesome!