USA for the first time in history landed a spacecraft on an asteroid

"The device behaved great", - said NASA.

The probe took samples of dust and soil from the asteroid and rise from its surface. The interplanetary station has been in Bennu orbit for two years, it was launched from Cape Canaveral in 2016.

There have been no such missions in NASA history. Scientists thus intend to obtain more information about the formation of the solar system. It is not yet known what the volume and weight of the soil collected by the apparatus is, it will become known only upon its return to Earth. Potentially, the Air Force notes , the probe's cargo could be the largest by weight that has been delivered to Earth from space since the Apollo 11 astronauts brought samples of lunar soil fifty years ago.

Let us note that an asteroid half a kilometer in diameter may collide with the earth's surface in two hundred years.

Meanwhile, Roscosmos has its own "victories". It looks like Russian experts have been able to determine the size of the crack through which air is leaking from the International Space Station. Prior to this, the Electron-VM oxygen production system installed on the "Zvezda" module in the Russian segment broke down on the ISS.