Join Dante Lauretta, NASA’s OSIRISREx principal investigator, for an enthralling journey over 200 million miles and 20 years in the making. With captivating animations and actual footage of the capsule landing, Dr Lauretta unveils the challenges, surprises, and triumphs of collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu and bringing it safely, immaculately, back to Earth. And now that it’s here, glimpse some of the early, unprecedented insights into our cosmic past and the potential for life beyond our planet.

Dante Lauretta is a Regents Professor of Planetary Science and Cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona's Lunar & Planetary Laboratory and the director of the new Arizona Astrobiology Center. He is an expert in nearEarth asteroid formation and evolution, and the leader of NASA's OSIRISREx Asteroid Sample Return mission. OSIRISREx is the United States’ premier mission to visit one of the most potentially hazardous nearEarth Asteroids, survey it to assess its impact hazard and resource potential, understand its physical and chemical properties, and return a sample of this body to Earth for detailed scientific analysis.

The spacecraft launched in September 2016 and began its journey to carbonrich nearEarth asteroid, Bennu. OSIRISREx rendezvoused with Bennu in 2018, obtained a sample in October 2020, embarked on its return voyage to Earth on May 10, 2021, and successfully released the sample return capsule which landed September 24, 2023. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx