Asteroid Return Mission Spacecraft OSRIRIS-REx Picks A Sample Site

A spacecraft more than 160 million miles away is about to suck up some asteroid dust — then send it back to Earth. The OSIRIS-REx mission will collect the sample from Bennu this summer and mission managers are carefully planning the maneuver.

Scientists hope to uncover the building blocks of early life in the universe when the sample arrives back here on Earth in 2023.

We’ll talk with mission scientist Humberto Campins about the final site selected by the team and the surprises OSIRIS-REx uncovered along the way.

Then, the star Betelgeuse is causing quite a stir after astronomers observed the star brightening and dimming in the night sky. Is it going to blow up? We’ll talk with our panel of experts on this week’s segment “I’d Like to Know.”