October 4, 2023 by
Earth Sciences Communications
Professor Kim Tait, Senior Curator of Mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is the "first Canadian involved with the mission to directly view material from the asteroid Bennu" retrieved by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago.The mission's capsule arrived safely back on Earth on September 24 and Dr Tait was at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston to witness the capsule being taken into a clean room for examination. A small amount of black powder from the rim of the sample canister was collected - a potential lifetime of work. Canada will eventually take posession of some samples when a facility to permanently house the samples is built.
Learn more about the OSIRIS-REx mission in this website.