The coolest new space pictures: September 2023
A lot of precious cargo came home from space this month. Two vehicles carrying crewmembers from the International Space Station and one asteroid sample return capsule braved fiery trips through Earth’s atmosphere. The month began with the return of a SpaceX Crew Dragon on Sept. 4, carrying a multinational crew back to Earth:

Three weeks later on Sept. 24, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule landed under parachute in the Utah desert. The sample from asteroid Bennu could help us learn more about the origins of life on Earth. It is now being studied in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas:

Finally, a Soyuz capsule carried two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut to a landing in Kazakhstan on Sept. 27. The trio wrapped up 371 days in space, making astronaut Frank Rubio the new record holder for the longest U.S. spaceflight:

Here are some other space images that caught our attention this month:



