An unmanned NASA spacecraft traveling to a distant asteroid veered toward Earth on Friday for a gravitational slingshot maneuver that will better aim it toward the Sun-orbiting space rock, Bennu, the US space agency said.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is going to fly past Earth on Sept. 22nd, sling-shotting itself toward a potentially hazardous asteroid named “Bennu.”
An Atlas V rocket traced a blazing arc into the Florida sky Thursday evening to send a small robotic explorer on its way to an asteroid on a mission that scientists anticipate will reveal answers to some of the basic questions about the solar system.
NASA is preparing to launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.
