NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to return samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ...

China's Tianwen 2 probe has captured striking pictures of home as it heads out to a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples.

Meanwhile, the sample’s delivery probe Hayabusa2 is currently en route for a 2031 rendezvous with its next asteroid—a small, rapidly spinning rock known as 1998 KY.

So Bennu is clearly a fragment of a much larger world, and that world was sopping wet—maybe even an ocean-level environment. Bennu is also loaded with diverse organic material.

China's Tianwen-2 probe continues on its journey to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) before heading to the main asteroid belt. The second in China's interplanetary exploration program ...

REx sample return capsule contained rock from the asteroid Bennu. NASA/Keegan Barber Mary Magnuson, Collecting asteroid samples China’s Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return mission is set to launch this ...