- NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a historic landing on the asteroid Bennu's surface Tuesday night
- Around 6.15pm OSIRIS-Rex descended onto the asteroid and extended its 11-foot robot arm, which collected rocks and dirt samples from the surface for mere seconds, before the craft launched back into space
- This marks the first time the US has gathered samples from an asteroid
- Asteroid contains material from the early solar system and could provide insight into origin of life on Earth
- The lengthy descent mission took 4.5 hours and the samples will return to Earth by 2023
- Bennu is located more than 200 million miles away from Earth
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