Asteroid samples escaping from jammed NASA spacecraft - Fox News

– A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week’s grab that it’s jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday.

Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu, NASA's first attempt at such a mission.

The mission’s lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, said Tuesday's operation 200 million miles away collected far more material than expected for return to Earth — in the hundreds of grams.

In this image taken from video released by NASA, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft touches the surface of asteroid Bennu on Tuesday, Oct.

NASA's OSIRIS-REX SPACECRAFT MAKES HISTORIC TOUCHDOWN ON ASTEROID BENNU.

This is NASA's first asteroid sample-return mission.

Scientists were stunned — and then dismayed — on Thursday when they saw the pictures coming from Osiris-Rex following its wildly successful touch-and-go at Bennu two days earlier.

A cloud of asteroid particles could be seen swirling around the spacecraft as it backed away from Bennu.

Regardless of what's on board, Osiris-Rex will still leave the vicinity of the asteroid in March — that's the earliest possible departure given the relative locations of Earth and Bennu.

The samples won't make it back until 2023, seven years after the spacecraft rocketed away from Cape Canaveral.

Osiris-Rex will keep drifting away from Bennu and will not orbit it again, as it waits for its scheduled departure.