Asteroid Bennu samples spill back into space from jammed Nasa spacecraft OSIRIS-REx, probe on

Nasa spacecraft OSIRIS-REx, that collected sample from a diamond-shaped asteroid Bennu earlier this week, is now stuffed with so much rubble from this week's grab that it's jammed open and precious particles are spilling back out into space, scientists said on Friday.

OSIRIS-REx principle investigator Dante Lauretta was quoted by AP as saying that the mission, 200 million miles away, collected far more material than expected for the return to Earth - in the hundreds of grams.

Bennu is a skyscraper-sized asteroid some 200 million miles (320 million km) from Earth. In the "Touch-and-Go" mission on Tuesday, Nasa spacecraft OSIRIS-REx managed to tag asteroid Bennu and collect a sample from its boulder-strewn surface.