On September 24, On A Desolate High Plain, In Utah -- The OSIRIS REx Mission Will Drop Off A Capsule Of Protoplanetary Material From Bennu...

We've covered this throughout COVID-19 lockdowns and now, well-beyond. [Here is one of many prior backgrounders of mine.]

Later this month, a well-trained NASA team will trek into the Utah desert, to collect a parachuted return capsule from the OSIRIS-REx mission. Inside, we expect to find proto-planetary material (about 2 to 8 ounces of the stuff) from about four and a half billion years ago -- not terribly long after planet shards were first beginning to clump together, in our own local group. Here's the relevant blog entry, over at NASA:

. . .The sample of rocks and dust, which the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected from the asteroid Bennu in Oct. 2020, will return to Earth on Sept. 24, safely landing at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample will give generations of scientists a window into the time when the Sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago. . . .

Now you know -- out, grinning. Prepping for some early winter myself, in the high Rockies, next week. Smile.

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