“A NASA spacecraft descended to an asteroid Tuesday and, dodging boulders the size of buildings, momentarily touched the surface to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for return to Earth. It was a first for the United States — only Japan has scored asteroid samples.” We generally try to avoid asteroids, but in 2020, anything is preferable to being stuck on Earth.

+ “For most of human history, the only way for scientists to get their hands on an asteroid was to wait for small chunks of one to fall through Earth’s atmosphere and smash into the ground. Incoming rocks can break apart and even vaporize during their fiery descent, so the world’s inventory of meteorites—the names given to asteroids once they’ve made it through the atmosphere—consists of only the hardiest samples.” The Atlantic: A Handful of Asteroid Could Help Decipher Our Entire Existence.