‘Perfectly Excited’: Canadian Scientists Await First Look at Bits From Asteroid Bennu

This December 14, 2018 handout image shows the asteroid Bennu in a composite of 12 images taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's PolyCam imager from a distance of 24 kilometres. The Canadian Press/Goddard/University of Arizona

A group of Canadian scientists is awaiting delivery of an outer space postcard from the past.

On Sept. 24, seven years after it blasted off from its Florida launch pad, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is expected to drop a capsule into the Earth’s atmosphere containing matter plucked from the surface of an asteroid dating from the early history of the solar system.