The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has announced that its asteroid sample collection and return mission OSIRIS-REx has departed from near-Earth asteroid Bennu and is heading back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer. OSIRIS-REx had been orbiting the asteroid since 2018. At 22:23 Monday night, South African time, the robot spacecraft fired its main engines at full power for seven minutes, breaking it out of Bennu’s orbit and accelerating away at a speed of almost 1 000 km/h.
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