Atom & Cosmos

NASA’s plans to sample an asteroid, good-bye to Spirit rover, Neptune’s spin and more in this week’s news

NASA’s first asteroid sampler The first U.S. spacecraft to scoop up samples of an asteroid and return them to Earth will be launched in 2016, NASA announced May 25. The craft, known as OSIRIS-REx, will reach the near-Earth asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2020.