Playing Tag With an Asteroid

  • Released Tuesday, February 4th, 2014
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:51PM
  • ID: 11435

What’s the best way get a sample of an asteroid? Play tag with it! That’s the plan for OSIRIS-REx, a NASA spacecraft that will approach the asteroid Bennu in 2018. The collection will be done with an instrument on board called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or, TAGSAM. Learn how it works in this video.

"Playing Tag With an Asteroid" is a video demonstrating how OSIRIS-REx will use it's TAGSAM instrument to get a sample of the asteroid Bennu.

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • Playing Tag With An Asteroid (ID: 2014003)
    Monday, February 3, 2014 at 5:00AM
    Produced by - Marit Jentoft-Nilsen