David Elder Lecture - Dr Sarah Crowther

OSIRIS-REx – The journey to Bennu and back

Dr. Sarah Crowther, University of Manchester

OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first sample return mission to an asteroid, launched in September 2016 on a 7-year round trip to collect a sample from asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth for detailed analysis. The spacecraft delivered its precious cargo to Earth in September 2023. Since then, scientists have been working hard to unlock what these pristine, 4.6 billion-year-old samples can tell us about the early days of the Solar System.

In this talk, Sarah will give an overview of the OSIRIS-REx mission, and talk about some of the findings to date.

About the speaker

Dr Sarah Crowther is a Research Fellow in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester. Her research looks at the evolution of the early Solar System through laboratory-based chemical analysis of extra-terrestrial materials. A large part of her research focuses on age-dating meteorites, to unravel the thermal and impact histories of their parent asteroids.

Sarah has previously analysed samples returned by NASA’s Genesis mission, the Apollo missions, NASA’s Stardust mission and the Japanese Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions. She is a member of the international Sample Analysis Team who are currently analysing and studying samples returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.

About the David Elder Lectures

Glasgow Science Centre is proud to host the David Elder Lectures in partnership with the University of Strathclyde's Department of Physics. This lecture is open to adults and interested young adults. Please ensure you arrive at least 10 minutes before the event begins. After the start the doors will be closed and access will not be permitted.