On Sept. 24, a special delivery from the universe arrived.

NASA’s Osiris-REx dropped off a cargo of rock, dust and other important material collected from the asteroid Bennu, the cargo capsule parachuting into the Utah desert.

“The pristine material from Bennu - rocks and dust collected from the asteroid’s surface in 2020 - will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago,” according to NASA’s official website.

That’s not a typographical error. Billion.

Imagining a billion anything is hard for some - well honestly, for me - to grasp.

Science was never a strong subject for me; however, 4.5 billion years seems to mean before time began.

Coverage on NPR.org shows the capsule decelerating from 27,650 mph to 11 mph in less than 15 minutes with the help of Earth’s atmosphere and a couple of parachutes, ushering the cargo to a safe landing on the desert sand.

After touchdown, the capsule was escorted to a clean room designed just for the occasion before it took a flight to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Research and analysis of the sample was to start soon after its arrival, an arrival effectively “opening a time capsule to our ancient solar system,” mission commentator James Tralie, a planetary science producer and animator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said as the capsule touched down.

Osiris-REx’s journey started seven years ago and covered more than a billion miles.

And it is not over.

Osiris-REx, short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer, dropped its cargo from Bennu to continue on the next part of its mission. The craft will head to 99942 Apophis, described as a near-Earth asteroid, to collect a sample from another intergalactic traveler.

The craft also will undergo a name change in the process, transforming into OSIRIS-APEX to reflect its rendezvous with Apophis, according to NASA.

Similar to the samples from the moon brought back by astronauts, the sample of Bennu is expected to be researched for decades to come, resulting in many, if not billions, of discoveries.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press