NASA to unveil first newly returned near-Earth asteroid sample

FILE PHOTO: The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA?s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, Utah, U.S. September 24, 2023. NASA/Keegan Barber/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

(Reuters) - NASA was set on Wednesday to provide a first peek for the public at what scientists found inside a tightly sealed canister that was returned to Earth last month carrying the largest soil sample ever scooped up from the surface of an asteroid.

The material collected by the OSRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu was to be unveiled at NASA's Johnston Space Center in Houston, a little more than two weeks after it was parachuted into the Utah desert.