NASA’s first asteroid samples land on Earth after release from spacecraft

NASA’s first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid. “We have touchdown!” Mission Recovery Operations announced, immediately repeating the news since the landing occurred three minutes early. Officials later said the orange striped parachute opened four times higher than anticipated — around 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) — basing it on the deceleration rate.

tips

asteroid 小行星

parachute 降落伞；vi 伞降

flyby 飞跃

capsule 太空舱；胶囊💊

expanse 宽阔；辽阔

anticipate 预期

military 军用（milit- = soldier，兵）

deceleration 减速

decelerate 减速