O'S Cyrus Rex was amazing, but the story gets even better when you hear it from the mission's principal investigator, this week on planetary radio. I'm Sarah Al Ahmed of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our

solar system and beyond. Behind every space mission is a harrowing tale of hard work, love, and perseverance.

Our guest this week, Dante Loretta, is the principal investigator for Nessa's

Osiris Rex Mission.

He'll share stories with us from his new book, The Asteroid Hunter.

Then Bruce Betts, our chief scientist, answers a question from our audience

and shares a new random space fact in this week's

what's up. If you love planetary radio and want to stay informed about the

latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite

podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the

Cosmos and are placed within it.

In 1999 researchers discovered a near-Earth object that posed a potentially grave threat to our planet.

The asteroid, which was later named Benu through a planetary society naming contest, could someday collide with Earth.

While the data shows that this won't happen any time soon,

the discovery marked Benu as an object of deep fascination.

Our guest today, Dr. Dante Loretta, and his team were tasked with unravelling Bennu's mysteries.

Their spacecraft was called The Origins Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security Regolith Explorer, or

Osiris Rec's mission.

It embarked on a quest to retrieve a sample from the asteroid's surface, one that could not only teach us more about the early solar

system and the origins of life, but potentially give us a deeper understanding of asteroids that could

someday help us save the world.

The Osiris Rec spacecraft launched in September 2016.

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