28 January 2019
Oldest Earth rocks found on the Moon
... Moon. The surprising find has been uncovered by an international team of scientists who had been studying a lunar sample returned by the Apollo 14 astronauts from their mission 48 years ago. The 2 gram fragment of rock, which is a possible relic...
16 October 2020
SWRI tests "Clockwork Starfish" for sampling asteroids
... for transport by turning itself entirely inside-out. “While current asteroid sample return missions visit single asteroids and collect samples from one or two locations on their surface, a future mission carrying dozens of micro-sampler landers...
23 December 2015
First new 'ground truth' in 40 years as Chinese rover Yuto presents analysis of moon rocks
... visible from Earth, to reveal that the basalts at the landing site are unlike those returned by the Apollo and Luna sample return missions. Since the termination of these two prominent lunar missions over nearly 40 years ago...
02 October 2018
New technique could provide fresh insights into how the Moon was formed
... Moon were filled with fresh, young rocks, but the samples returned by the Apollo astronauts showed that they are in fact...a common green mineral – olivine – found in the Moon rock samples to study them in greater detail than ever before. Olivine in ...
January 2020
Small body missions unveil interplanetary secrets
... acquired by the Earth. Artist’s illustration of first touchdown at asteroid Ryugu. The Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission will return samples of carbonaceous chondrites, allowing us to study how these materials formed in space, and how and...
22 September 2017
OSIRIS-REx makes closest Earth approach today
Today, NASA’s asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, will whizz round the Earth and use our planet’s gravity like a slingshot to ...
