A sample of soil delivered from the asteroid Bennu contains carbon and water

A soil sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, brought to Earth as part of a six-year NASA mission, contains water and carbon. This was announced by space agency director Bill Nelson at a special event in Houston, broadcast on NASA’s X account.

“First analysis shows that the samples contain large amounts of water in the form of hydrated clay minerals and carbon <...> “This is the largest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth and will help scientists explore the origins of life on our planet for future generations,” he said.

Such missions, Nelson emphasized, will not only allow us to learn more about the origin and development of life on the planet, but will also improve our understanding of asteroids that potentially threaten the Earth. Scientists expect that studying the asteroid, whose chemical composition has remained virtually unchanged since its formation about 4.5 billion years ago, will provide a better understanding of the origins of the solar system, as well as how “precursor materials to life” could have reached Earth.

The landing of a capsule in September with a soil sample from Bennu completed a six-year mission OSIRIS-REx station launched by NASA and the University of Arizona. Over the past two weeks, clarified According to NASA’s press office, scientists conducted a “quick” analysis of this source material, collecting images from a scanning electron microscope, analyzing chemical elements, etc. The mission’s goal was to collect at least 60 grams of material, but in the end, much more was collected.

“The abundance of carbon-rich material and the abundant presence of hydrous clay minerals are just the tip of the cosmic iceberg,” OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante S. Lauretta commented on the discovery.

NASA clarified that it will store at least 70% of the sample at the space center in Houston for further research by scientists around the world, including future generations of scientists.

How notes Reuters, this sample is the third in a row, but the largest. In 2010 and 2020 The Japanese space agency carried out similar missions. OSIRIS-REx was launched back in 2016 and reached Bennu in 2018, spending almost two years in orbit of the asteroid with a diameter of about 500 m, and only on October 20, 2020, came close enough to take a sample of material from its surface using his robotic “arm”.