The United States space agency NASA's spacecraft OSIRIS-REx rendezvoused with its targeted asteroid Bennu on Monday after a two-year space travel.

The asteroid probing spacecraft fired its thruster for a small burn at about 12:08 EST, after flying closer to the near-earth rock, or about 20 kilometer away from it, so close that NASA called it an arrival.

It kicked off a year-long investigation on the carbon-rich asteroid that may impact Earth about 200 years away and lend clues to how life evolved in early days of our planet.