and nasa spacecraft has briefly landed on an asteroid called benue over 320000000 kilometers from earth the most serious threats collected rock and dust samples that scientists hope will allow them to learn more about how planets formed and life began. 2 words that nasa scientists have waited for since 2016 when robotic spacecraft cyrus rex started its journey to the asteroid for the past 2 years of its mission osiris rex has been orbiting the asteroid looking for the perfect spot to land for only a brief encounter a few seconds almost like a kiss on the surface was all the time osiris rex had to grab rock and dust samples from the asteroid seconds that have been here in the making room i can tell you that everything went well just exactly perfect which is kind of the hallmark of this team we have consistently beating expectations over and over again we have overcome the amazing challenges that this asteroid has thrown at us and the spacecraft appears to have operated flawlessly it was the 1st time nasa has touched down on an asteroid but it could be a week before scientists know if and

interesting information lot of things that we did not expect to find fascinating of this asteroid benu the name it you said it could become dangerous for the earth's winds that. well it just the way that it orbits the sun comes close to the earth's fold in or near earth asteroids and you kind of want to understand how it's put together because if it does hit the earth if it's a solid object you can you know when to cause a problem and if it's likely to be fragile it could just burn in so little pieces as it comes close to the earth so you'd like to actually get close to a no knock on it and see how it's put together which is exactly what the solutions don't let's you know hope that they have a successful mission and let's hope that this asteroid misses the earth keith cowing editor of the their news web site nasa watch dot com keith as always good talking with you we appreciate your insights. back here on earth berlin is famous for its nightlife especially the club scene that all came to a grinding halt earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic night clubs remain closed bars ar

asteroid 320000000 kilometers away from earth the probe briefly touched down on the surface of the benu asteroid it aims to scoop up a few handfuls of dust and pebbles from the surface stube act on earth in 2023 mike wallace is senior writer with space dot com he says the mission could help understand how life began on earth. it's a pretty amazing technological feat and all of this was done by this probe by itself you know it's too big it's far too far away to be controlled in and sort of real time by its handlers here on earth so it basically did this all by itself out there of judging whether it was safe to go down and then it was it was more of like a kiss than like a landing at basically it has this this like sampling head on the end of a long robotic arm and it just came down and pushed that against the asteroid rubble and then touched it for about 10 seconds and then sort of back slowly away from the asteroid so it's pretty pretty amazing one of the big goals just basically i mean these sorts of asteroids are sort of left over just just like building blocks from the big chunks tha

to plan the osiris rex spacecraft will scoop up around 60 grams of rubble from the surface of the benue asteroid and return it to earth. time now for a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera nigeria's largest city is under a 24 hour curfew in a bid to to end weeks of protests the indefinite restrictions in lagos come after a police station was torched in demonstrations against allegations of police brutality the country's police chief is also ordered the immediate the ploy meant of anti-riot police squads across all of nigeria there have been nearly 2 weeks of protests against a controversial police anti robbery group which has since been disbanded actually addresses in the capital of georgia we understand that there are pockets of protesters still on the streets protesting and demanding that the demands be met there is also a very very serious traffic jam on of that group it's usually a very difficult situation at this point in time when people close to the world earlier the capital here as an announced a ban on street porters however that did not stop the protesters from carrying o

and nasa spacecraft has briefly come into physical contact with an asteroid called benu over 320000000 kilometers from earth well it was it had this probe it collected rock and dust samples that scientists hope will allow them to learn more about how planets formed and life began. down declared. the 2 words that nasa scientists have waited for since 2016 all right. when robotic spacecraft was cyrus rex started its journey to the asteroid. for the past 2 years of its mission but sarah's rex has been orbiting the asteroid looking for the perfect spot to land for only a brief encounter. a few seconds almost like a kiss on the surface was all the time osiris rex had to grab rock and dust samples from the asteroid seconds that have been here since in the making and. you know more. i don't want to say that but i can tell you that everything went well just exactly perfect which is kind of a hallmark of this team we have consistently been expectations over and over again we have overcome the amazing challenges that this asteroid has thrown at us and the spacecraft appears to have operated flaw

very happens more than 320000000 kilometers from earth the osiris rackspace for landed on the benue asteroid wednesday kicking up a quote of debris scientists say that's a good sign that it was able to collect samples and these may hold clues to better understanding from ation of the solar system. and finally the 1st space creates a launch during a pandemic has returned safely earth nasa astronaut chris cassidy and cosmonauts and it's all the even the shin and ivan wagner's spent 6 months on the international space station they have no touchstone in kazakstan not sure if they will have to see self isolates or not on their arrival will find out say where there's an al-jazeera. my. this is al jazeera and these are the headlines the u.s. federal bureau of investigations as iran and russia have obtained vaults are registration information the f.b.i. says the aim is to go.

to plan the osiris rex spacecraft will scoop up around 60 grams of rubble from the surface of the benue asteroid and return it to earth. time now for a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera nigeria's largest city is under a 24 hour curfew in a bid to end weeks of protests the indefinite restrictions in lagos come after a police station was torched in demonstrations against allegations of police brutality the country's police chief is also ordered the immediate the.

moving asteroid to snatch a tiny amount of dust and rock what a manages to pick up from asteroid to benue 320000000 kilometers away could tell us much more about how planets are formed victoria gate of reports. a historic moment is on the horizon of the nasa cyrus rex mission it's about to briefly touch down on the surface of asteroid banding together a sample of rock something nasa has never done before this is the culmination of a lot of work it's probably one of the most exciting missions that i've worked on and it is really exciting to know that we're finally going to be able to touch the surface of. ben who is more than 320000000 kilometers from earth the plan is for the cyrus rex to land in adult crayton a benny's north pole once the sample collect to send his contact with the new surface it will fire a small part of compressed nitrogen to kick up daybreak and capture pieces of the asteroid and event that last just a few seconds scientists say many things could go wrong they have gone a couple of thessalian on these year they approach to 60 meters to 40 meters just to check that the

then i thought we're in for a real challenge here. >> benu is covered in boulders.ample scientists spent a year. they settled on this small flat called nightingale crater. there's mountain of doom. we don't want to fly into that. >> the spacecraft is about the size of a large van. it has to maneuver into an area the size of a few parking spaces. its 11 foot long arm ends with a sort of space vacuum cleaner designed to collect 2 ounces of asteroid gravel. the robot will spend ten seconds before backing away. >> the most intriguing part to me of the mission is the excitement of bringing a sample back to earth. >> reporter: laurie glaze, nasa's director of planetary science. >> that's like discovering the dna of the universe, right? >> it's exactly like discovering that. at least the dna of our solar system. this is what built up who we are here today. >> reporter: potentially a cosmic jackpot. it will land in utah in 2023. for "cbs this morning." mark strassmann, atlanta. >> that's fascinating. >> mark strassmann had a lot of w wowzer moments. >> a cosmic jackpot. >>

the osiris rex spacecraft touched down for a few seconds on the surface of the asteroid named benu to collect rock and dust samples you successful osiris rex will return with the samples to earth in 2023 scientists hope the mission helps them learn more about how planets formed and how life began let's get more on this joining me from washington is keith colleen is editor of the space news web site nasa watch dot com keith good to have you on the program the spacecraft has finally touched down on the asteroid 4 years after it was launched was this a successful sample collection it would seem that it was perfectly the spacecraft ki moon your this is the asteroid games graded touched made a little worse to be here grab some simple been backed off and everybody's happy everybody was jumping up and down nothing seems to have gone wrong everything seems to go right ok so what's the next set of challenges that we expect for this mission . well it's going to still study the asteroid it's circling it right now but at some point it will come back to her it'll take 3 years to get here and as it

interesting information lot of things that we did not expect to find fascinating of this asteroid benu in the name of it you said it could become dangerous for the earth why is that. well it just the way that it orbits the sun comes close to the earth's boulder near earth asteroids and you kind of want to understand how it's put together because if it does hit the earth if it's a solid object you can you know land and cause a problem and if it's likely to be fragile it could just burn in so little pieces there's a comes close in the year so you'd like to actually get close to a no knock on it and see how it's put together which is exactly what the solutions don't let's you know for 50 have a successful mission and let's hope that this asteroid misses the earth keep going editor of the best news web site nasa watch dot com. sports news now football and the champions league has resumed tonight a bit media speculation about its possible demise in future seasons but last terms see my finalist or be like sick got on with the job in hand and be to stand by shocked to hear 2 nil angeleno grab

from earth it's only the 2nd time it's been done a probe briefly touched down on the surface of the benu asteroid with a goal of scooping up a few handfuls of dust and pebbles from the set. those are the headlines coming up next on fair game stay with us. the election of the 45th president of the united states raises ethical and potentially legal question. today mainstream media can easily be disrupted and personal online data easily accessed. how can this information be used to sway the outcome off an election. and can it undermine the basic tenets of democracy that are so cherished. i think if americans knew this was happening they would be outraged. we just weren't mentally able at that point in time to see that coming. this is democracy taking place in darkness it's not democracy. i look presenting the facts plainly and hottest. staten island's new york. in a state that's considered a stronghold for democrats this suburb is an exception. most of the people here voted for donald trump. scott libido lives here patriots artists and a big supporter of the president's. use unconventional.

before if all goes to plan the oh cyrus rex spacecraft will touch down briefly on the surface of the benue asteroid and scoop up our own 60 grams of rubble from the surface it would make the united states the 2nd nation after japan to successfully retrieve part of an asteroid well amy thompson from space dot com joins us now by skype from orlando in the united states adam thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera so 1st of all explain to us it's very rare would only be the 2nd time it's happened if it works why is it so important to collect the sample from an asteroid what are you hoping to the sky for well asteroids are basically fossils so they have a record of the early solar system and give scientists an insight into how planets form and how they bring materials like water and other organics to earth and other planets ok so if correct me if i'm wrong but the only other time well this would be the biggest extraterrestrial samples that we've got since basically since the landings on the moon would you expect this to give us more information than even samples from the moon did.