OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta at the unveiling of the Bennu sample in Tucson.
A sample from the asteroid Bennu is joining terrestrial rocks on display in downtown Tucson.
It can be viewed under glass at the Alfie Norville Gem and Mineral Museum inside the old Pima County courthouse.
University of Arizona planetary scientist and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta notes the sample is a special find.
“It is a piece of rock but rocks remember and this one has remembered four and a half billion years of solar system history. It’s the oldest thing you can lay your eyes on.”
The sample is part of the material collected during the OSIRIS-REx mission and brought to Earth last September.
The Norville museum is one of just three places in the world displaying an extraterrestrial rock orginating from somewhere other than the moon. Visitors can see the sample during general admission hours Tuesday-Saturday from 10am-4pm.
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