NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brings asteroid samples back to Earth
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What’s next for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft?
After the Bennu sample capsule’s release, NASA renamed the OSIRIS-REx mission. Now called OSIRIS-APEX, the spacecraft will meet up with a 1,000-foot-wide asteroid called Apophis.
Apophis will miss the Earth by about 20,000 miles in 2029 — that’s closer than our own Moon.
OSIRIS-APEX will study the gravitational effects of the close pass on “the asteroid’s orbit, spin rate, and surface.”
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