Historic! Osiris-Rex touches down on Earth, brings back major asteroid in NASA first
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A seven-year space voyage came to its climactic end Sunday when a NASA capsule landed in the desert in the US state of Utah, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected. Scientists have high hopes for the sample, saying it will provide a better understanding of the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. "Touchdown of the Osiris-Rex sample return capsule!" a commentator said on NASA's live video webcast of the landing, as engineers and team members applauded at a nearby mission control center.Completing a 3.86-billion-mile (6.21 billion-kilometer) journey, it marked the United States' first sample return mission of its kind, the US space agency said in a post on X, the former Twitter. NASA chief Bill Nelson hailed the mission and said the a...