OSIRIS-Rex

Anytime you make something, you can expect to have some raw materials left over. For a house, it’s nails and scraps of wood. For a dress, it’s scraps of fabric. And for the solar system’s planets, it’s chunks of ice and rock — the asteroids and comets that didn’t get incorporated into the planets.
Studying that debris can reveal important details about how the planets were born. And a new mission is expected to do just that.
OSIRIS-Rex is scheduled for launch as early as this week. It’ll spend a couple of years reaching its target, a small asteroid called Bennu. It’ll scan the asteroid from every angle, then touch down and scoop up some of the dust at its surface — anywhere from a few ounces to a few pounds. It’ll then bring that material back to Earth for analysis.
Ed Beshore is one of the project scientists.