LPL Spotlight Stories

Tucked inside a clear container protected by a metal casing, the pebble collected from asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is one of only three places in the world to display an extraterrestrial rock sample collected in space, other than the moon. Chris Richards/University Communications

A Pebble Scooped from an Asteroid is now on Display at UArizona Museum

Tucson’s Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum is one of only three places in the world where the public can see a piece of the asteroid Bennu, collected during NASA's LPL-led OSIRIS-REx mission.
This artist's illustration depicts how the gas leaving the nascent planet-forming disk might look. Such gas dispersal can also happen around supermassive black holes, however, the physics may not be the same as that discussed here.ESO/M. Kornmesser

James Webb Space Telescope Captures the End of Planet Formation

We know that there is nearly 100 times more gas than solids present when planets form. But today we see only a fraction of that gas in the solar system (stored within gas giant planets like Jupiter). So, when and how did the remaining gas leave the system? New research featuring LPL graduate student Naman Bajaj as lead author seeks to answer this exact question.
OSIRIS-REx curation team attempting to remove the two remaining fasteners

NASA's OSIRIS-REx Curation Team Clears Hurdle to Access Remaining Bennu Sample

Before this milestone, the curation team already had collected more than the 60 grams required to declare the mission a success.
OSIRIS-APEX approaches asteroid Apophis

UArizona-led Asteroid Sampling Mission's New Journey: OSIRIS-APEX

Under the leadership of the University of Arizona's Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina, the former OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sets off on a journey to study asteroid Apophis and take advantage of the asteroid's 2029 flyby of Earth.
Sample of Bennu

Sweating The Small Stuff: UArizona Scientists Have Begun To Study Samples From Asteroid Bennu

At the university's Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis (K-ALFAA), a suite of instruments allows researchers to study the particles collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission the down to the atomic scale.
An oblique view focusing on one of the vast lava flows in Elysium Planitia

Recent Volcanism on Mars Reveals a Planet More Active than Previously Thought

University of Arizona researchers reconstructed lava flows from spacecraft images and radar to better understand Mars' surprisingly turbulent history.
Artist's illustration of an asteroid passing close to Earth

Citizen Science Project Nets a New Asteroid, and It's a Close One

Members of the public helped the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey spot a previously unknown near-Earth asteroid on its orbit around the sun. The asteroid, TW 2023, has no chance of colliding with Earth.
The far side of the moon, with distant Earth in the background, is visible in this photo taken by the moon-orbiting module of the Chang'e 5-T1 mission.

Tracking an Errant Space Rocket to a Mysterious Crater on the Moon

A new study shows how a team at the University of Arizona's Space4 Center tracked down a contested piece of space junk that crashed onto the moon and provides an explanation for why it left not one but two craters.
OSIRIS-APEX pursues asteroid Apophis during its exceptionally close flyby of Earth on April 13, 2029.

OSIRIS-REx Flies on as OSIRIS-APEX to Explore a Second Asteroid

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission learned much about the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu and its risk to Earth. Now, the mission will change hands and target a different kind of potentially hazardous asteroid, Apophis.
UArizona Space4 Center lab manager Neil Pearson, aerospace and mechanical engineering graduate student Tanner Campbell and Vishnu Reddy, professor at the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and director of the Space4 Center, observe the separation of the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule from the spacecraft from Kihei, Hawaii, on Sept. 24.

Tracking the Bennu Sample Capsule's Separation from OSIRIS-REx

Data collected ahead of the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule's plunge into Earth's atmosphere will help test algorithms used to pinpoint asteroids that could impact Earth.