A space capsule carrying NASA’s first asteroid samples streaked toward a touchdown in the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. Flying by Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out. About a teaspoon was returned by Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples. By the time it returned Sunday, the spacecraft had traveled 4 billion miles (6.2 billion kilometers). Political Cartoons View All 1176 ImagesNow free of the sample capsule, Osiris-Rex is already targeting another asteroid.

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Persons: Rex, Rex rocketed Organizations: Utah, Scientists, Space Center, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: Utah, Japan, Houston