India, Oct. 21 -- NASA's Osiris-Rex robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on near-Earth asteroid Bennu's surface on Tuesday to collect rock and dust samples that will be brought back to Earth in 2023.

Bennu is currently more than 200 million miles, or 321 million kilometres, from Earth. Osiris-Rex launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in September 2016.

The spacecraft arrived at Bennu in early December 2018, and began orbiting the asteroid for the first time on December 31, 2018. The spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth in September 2023. This is NASA's first mission to return a sample from an ancient asteroid.

According to NASA, the boulder-covered Bennu has been undisturbed for billions of years. Scientist...