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NASA effort to bring home asteroid rocks will end this weekend in triumph or a crash

This mosaic composed of images of the asteroid Bennu taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows its surprisingly rubble-strewn surface. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

If all goes as planned, on Sunday morning a bell-shaped space capsule the size of a mini-fridge will come screaming down through the atmosphere toward a Utah desert.

Inside will be some precious cargo: about a cup's worth of rock and dust that a NASA spacecraft collected from an asteroid called Bennu that was, at the time, more than 200 million miles away.

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