sample return

NASA’s asteroid sampling mission gave scientists around the world the rare opportunity to study an artificial meteor

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Earth is constantly bombarded by fragments of rock and ice, known as meteoroids, from space. Most meteoroids are as small as grains of sand and small pebbles, and burn up completely high in the atmosphere. You can see meteoroids larger than about a golf ball as they glow like meteors or shooting stars on a … Read more

If life exists on Mars, don’t count on sample return missions to find it, scientists say

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As the call to bring bits and pieces of Mars back to Earth for intensive research continues, scientists are also devising instruments and techniques that could be sent to the Red Planet to conduct on-site investigations for life. Can these low-cost approaches overcome the early need for samples shot directly from Mars? That option is … Read more