CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft is headed back to Earth with rubble it collected from an asteroid nearly 200 million miles away. The robotic explorer Osiris-Rex fired its engines Monday to start the two-year trip home. The spacecraft reached the ancient, carbon-rich space rock in 2018 and spent two years flying near and around it. It gathered samples from the surface last October. The lead scientist for the mission estimates it holds as much as a pound of asteroid rubble. It will be the biggest cosmic haul for the U.S. since the Apollo moon rocks.
