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NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is cruising back to Earth with the sample it collected from asteroid Bennu's rocky surface in 2020. When the sample capsule parachutes down into the Utah desert on Sept. 24, the UArizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission will become the first U.S. mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth.

University of Arizona space sciences activities generate more than $560 million every year for the local economy, according to an economic impact report delivered by Rounds Consulting Group.

NASA awarded nearly $3 million to the University of Arizona Kuiper Materials Imaging and Characterization Facility to support OSIRIS-REx sample science and much more.

From exploring the deepest corners of the universe to reimagining urban heat resilience, University of Arizona expertise in several disciplines generated international headlines in 2022.

Dani DellaGiustina, deputy principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission and principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX, was named to the list for her work to understand the solar system's past, present and future.

Before-and-after data from the few seconds it took the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to collect a sample from asteroid Bennu revealed a surprise: The particles of Bennu's exterior are so loosely packed, they act more like a fluid than a solid.

Lauretta is principal investigator of the UArizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission, NASA's premier mission to visit a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid and bring back a sample.

The extended UArizona-led mission, dubbed OSIRIS-APEX, will study the near-Earth asteroid Apophis, which is expected to have a close encounter with Earth in 2029.

The award recognizes the team behind the mission's successful collection of a pristine asteroid sample for laying "the groundwork for forging the next generation of scientists, astronomers, geologists and more."

The University of Arizona has joined a collaboration with Space Trust – a nongovernmental organization based in the United Kingdom – and the University of Nairobi in Kenya to develop a series of Earth-orbiting spacecraft built by university students.

Using data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, a UArizona-led team of scientists concluded that asteroids with highly porous rocks, such as Bennu, should lack fine-grain material on their surfaces.

NASA and UArizona scientists were able to significantly reduce uncertainties about asteroid Bennu's orbit and determine the likelihood of the asteroid impacting Earth between now and the year 2300.