After “tagging” the asteroid Bennu on 20 October, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft backed away and beamed back a series of images captured before, during and immediately after the encounter, giving scientists a bird’s eye view of the encounter. Pressurized nitrogen gas was released one second after contact, stirring up a rocky blizzard directly below the spacecraft’s Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, collector. The mechanism was designed to blow at least 60 grams of rock and soil into into collection chambers for return to Earth in 2023. Scientists were astonished by the mesmerizing views, stringing the images together to form a stop-action movie. The shots below show highlights from the encounter (images: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona):




