Technologies

NASA Brings Home Asteroid Sample Swiped by Osiris-Rex Spacecraft

A tiny shipment grabbed from a space rock touched down in the Utah desert on Sunday.

For the first time, NASA has returned some dust and other bits of an asteroid collected in space to Earth for study.

Pieces of a large asteroid named Bennu were jarred loose and collected nearly three years ago by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft, which launched over seven years ago from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

On Sunday morning, the spacecraft released a capsule that landed a little over four hours later, at 9:52 a.m. PT, in the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. Within 20 minutes, scientists, engineers and military personnel arrived by helicopter to inspect and secure the capsule, which was transported to a nearby cleanroom. It will be moved to Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday.

«While this may feel like the end of an incredible chapter, it’s truly just the beginning of another,» Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for Osiris-Rex based at the University of Arizona, said in a statement. «We now have the unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the secrets of our solar system.»

In 2020, the van-size spacecraft performed a «touch and go» maneuver — sort of like a chest bump in space — and swiped a few ounces of material from the space rock, which is really a pile of rubble held together by its own gravity. Osiris-Rex lingered around Bennu until 2021, when it started its two-year journey back to Earth.

Graphic showing the route of the asteroid sample from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft to its landing in the Utah desert.

Since launching on Sept. 8, 2016, Osiris-Rex has traveled billions of miles to Bennu and back. It is the first such mission led by NASA. Japan’s space agency sent two spacecraft, named Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2, to collect and deliver samples from asteroids Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively.

In Houston, the sample will undergo preliminary analysis and be unveiled on Oct. 11 in a livestreamed news conference. It’s hoped the sample will provide scientists with a window into the birth of the solar system, including the sun and planets, some 4.5 billion years ago.

As for the main spacecraft, it isn’t done. After sending its treasure to the surface, Osiris-Rex fired its engines to avoid smashing into the atmosphere. It will now continue on to its next target, the asteroid Apophis, under the new moniker Osiris-Apex (Osiris-Apophis Explorer). The vehicle isn’t equipped to collect and deliver another sample, but it may try to blast the asteroid with its gas thrusters in an attempt to dislodge dust and other small bits for study.

Apophis is an important target because it’s considered a potentially hazardous asteroid. While any chance of it impacting Earth in the next century has been ruled out, it will be worth keeping a close eye on for centuries to come.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #463

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 463 for June 9.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Todays NYT Strands puzzle features a bunch of mysterious words. Some are a bit difficult to unscramble so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: What you see isn’t what you get

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Hiding in plain sight

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

CALL, CALLS, FALL, FALLS, SAME, SEAM, LAND, ROSE, COVE, CANE, CANES, FLUME, FLUMES, DIGS, MEAL, COLA, CARD, CASE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

MASK, CLOAK, COVER, FACADE, DISGUISE, CAMOUFLAGE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is FALSEFRONT. To find it, start with the F that’s two rows over from the far left and two letters down. Wind around into a question mark.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #729

Here are some hints and the answers for Connections for June 9, No. 729.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Do you play the NYT Spelling Bee? If you do, you should be able to ace the purple category in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Control-C.

Green group hint: Don’t wait till the last minute.

Blue group hint: Pals to plan a heist.

Purple group hint: Think another NYT online game.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Keyboard shortcut commands.

Green group: Secure in advance.

Blue group: Crime organization.

Purple group: Spellling Bee ranks minus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is keyboard shortcut commands. The four answers are paste, print, quit and save.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is secure in advance. The four answers are book, order, request and reserve.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is crime organization. The four answers are crew, family, ring and syndicate.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Spelling Bee ranks minus a letter. The four answers are genus, goo, mazing and slid. (Genius, good, amazing and solid.)

Technologies

I Made Google Translate My Default on iPhone Before a Trip and It Saved Me More Than Once

Google Translate supports far more languages than Apple’s app, and it’s easy to make the switch.

If you’re traveling overseas this summer, the Google Translate app can come in handy to quickly translate a road sign or conversation. The latest Google Translate update allows you to pick the app as your default translation app for Apple iPhones and iPads running iOS and iPadOS 18.4 and later. Previously, you were limited to the built-in Apple option.

Google began leveraging AI to boost Google Translate’s offerings, adding 110 languages last year to increase its total support for 249 languages. Compare that to Apple Translate, which supports 19 languages. Neither Google nor Apple responded to a request for comment.

Both apps offer voice and text translation, including a camera feature that lets you instantly translate by pointing your camera at text. Both also allow you to use translation features without an internet connection, which can come in particularly handy when traveling to more remote locations.

After using both, I found that the Google Translate picked up speech a little quicker so I didn’t have to constantly repeat myself, and the audio pronunciations were a little easier to understand than on Apple Translate. I switched to Google Translate as the default on my iPhone, and here’s how you can, too.