NASA reveals first glimpse of ‘scientific treasure’ collected from asteroid

on Wednesday, the first glimpse of the jackpot from a seven-year mission to bring back pieces of an asteroid was revealed.

NASA officials in Houston showed images of salt-and-pepper chunks of rock and particles of dark space dust brought back to Earth by the asteroid Bennu, describing the first scientific observations about the material. The mission, Osiris-Rex, ended in September when a capsule containing the collection of asteroid samples reentered Earth’s atmosphere and was recovered in the Utah desert.

As technicians pried into the external container, they discovered that some of the material was leaking out. Scientists were able to perform a quick analysis that revealed some early findings.

The asteroid pieces contain boggy clay minerals. Their presence could help solve how Earth became a water planet. Asteroids similar to Bennu may have crashed into Earth and filled our oceans.

“The reason that Earth is a habitable world, that we have oceans and lakes and rivers and rain, is because these clay minerals, like the ones we see from Bennu, landed on Earth four billion years ago,” says Professor Dante Lauretta. of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona, who serves as the mission’s principal investigator, said Wednesday at a NASA event.

The materials also contain sulfur, a crucial element for many geological transformations in rocks. “It determines how quickly things melt and is also critical to biology,” says Dr. Lauretta, who showed microscopic images and 3D visualizations of the material. The scientists also found magnetite, an iron oxide mineral that can play an important role as a catalyst in organic chemical reactions.

“We’re looking at the types of minerals that may have played a central role in the origins of life on Earth,” said Dr. Lauretta.

The asteroid is also packed with carbon, the key element in the building blocks of life. One sample contained 4.7 weight percent carbon.

“We picked the right asteroid,” said Daniel Glavin, a NASA astrobiologist working on the mission. “And not only that, we also brought the right sample. This stuff is an astrobiologist’s dream.”

The NASA mission that brought back the samples was called Osiris-Rex – short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security, Regolith Explorer. It ended on September 24 when a capsule containing the pieces of Bennu landed under a parachute in the Utah desert. From there, the capsule was taken to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. When technicians there removed the canister lid with the sample collection instrument, they found dark powder and sand particles.

“And this is already a scientific treasure,” said Dr. Lauretta.

That material not only provides a quick, early look at what’s inside, but also slowed down the work of getting into the main compartment of the sample collection instrument.

“The only problem is a big problem, and that is that we found a lot more samples than we expected” before we even got to the bulk of the collection instrument, said Francis McCubbin, curator of astromaterials at the Johnson Space Center. “We have to collect every grain very carefully and carefully. It takes a little longer to get in, but the view so far is great.”

For Maritza Montoya, one of the technicians who painstakingly collected the samples, this meant pushing the powder into small piles with a spatula and then scooping them up with a small dustpan. “It’s literally a mini dustpan,” Ms. Montoya said.

The leak yielded a total of 1.5 grams of powder and particles.

“You can see they have a metallic sheen,” Ms. Montoya said. “So when you shine a light, they shine back and reflect that light.”

When the sample collector was turned over, larger pieces emerged, including rocks that had prevented a seal from closing completely.

“There’s a whole treasure trove of extraterrestrial material out there,” said Dr. Lauretta.

Scientists do not yet know how much material they have. After a few more weeks of disassembling the device, they expect to be able to weigh it. While the spacecraft was still in Bennu, engineers performed a maneuver that yielded a rough estimate: 8.8 ounces. The hope was that Osiris-Rex would bring back at least 2.1 ounces.

Scientists plan to compare the Bennu samples with what a Japanese spacecraft, Hayabusa2, brought back from a similar asteroid, Ryugu, although scientists can already see differences. For example, Ryugu contains less water.

Discovered in 1999, Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid that is almost black in color. It is approximately 1,600 feet wide. That can be compared to the Empire State Building, which is 440 meters high, including the antenna at the top. The carbon-rich materials are intriguing because asteroids like Bennu may have provided Earth with the building blocks for life.

Osiris-Rex was launched in 2016 and arrived at Bennu a few years later, where it made remote observations. Based on these remote findings, it identified carbonate minerals in the asteroid, which typically form in environments with both hot water and carbon dioxide. That suggests that the larger object that Bennu was once part of had hot springs or some other kind of extensive hydrothermal system. If so, it is possible that there is liquid water that has been trapped in the pores of the minerals for several billion years.

“We may have samples directly from the asteroid water,” said Dr. Lauretta.

In October 2020, Osiris-Rex pogo probed the asteroid using its sampling instrument, which resembles a car air filter at the end of a robotic arm, to pick up the rock samples. A burst of nitrogen gas sent rocks and dust into the collection filter, after which Osiris-Rex slowly reversed without landing on Bennu.

A valve on the collection instrument was opened and the collected rock and dirt began to escape back into space. Mission managers decided to stow the sample as quickly as possible. In May 2021, the spacecraft began returning to Earth.

Using the surface samples, researchers will measure the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium, a heavier form of hydrogen, and see if that ratio matches what is found in Earth’s oceans. Scientists once thought that comets provided the water, but the hydrogen-deuterium ratio of most comets is different from Earth’s.

Scientists will also look for amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, found in meteorites that have fallen to Earth.

But meteorites on Earth quickly become contaminated. “Microorganisms immediately colonize them,” said Dr. Lauretta. “

The Bennu sample will allow scientists for the first time to look at the amino acids used in living things from a pristine asteroid.

The samples could also help shed light on why all life on Earth uses only one of the two mirror forms of amino acids and other complex organic molecules. If Bennu contains more of the mirror shape used by life, it suggests that the cosmos has pushed the odds to do so. Otherwise it could have been another factor, or just pure coincidence.

The Osiris-Rex research could also help protect Earth in the future.

Bennu is categorized as a near-Earth asteroid, and scientists say there is a 1 in 1,750 chance of it colliding with Earth during a series of very close passes between 2175 and 2199.

Bennu isn’t big enough to cause planet-wide extinctions. But at the moment of impact it would be catastrophic.

Although the mission has ended, the spacecraft’s journey is not over. After releasing the return sample capsule, the main spacecraft veered away from impact with Earth and is now headed for Apophis, a 300-meter-wide asteroid that will fly within 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029. Shortly after that close approach, the spacecraft, now renamed Osiris-Apex – short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Apophis Explorer – will enter orbit around Apophis.