On September 24, a pod from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space mission dropped through Earth’s atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour, before parachuting safely into a military testing area in the Utah desert. The capsule contained a historic payload – a sample from an 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid named Bennu – and now the space agency has revealed its initial results from analysing the space rock.

The Bennu sample is a big deal in the space community, partly because of its size – at around 60 grams, it’s the biggest sample of its kind to be collected in space and brought back to Earth. Plus, researchers found “bonus” material gathered in the nooks and crannies of the science canister, as shown in the first picture posted to social media (below).

More importantly, though, NASA was excited to receive the bits and pieces of Bennu because scientists expected it to contain carbon and water, two seemingly fundamental components for the formation of life. As it turns out, they were right. “More carbon than expected and an abundance of water were found in the 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid sample returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx,” says NASA in its announcement. “The two combined could mean that the building blocks for life on Earth might be locked in these rocks.”

“The OSIRIS-REx sample is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth and will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come,” adds NASA administrator Bill Nelson, in a recent statement shared by the agency. “Almost everything we do at NASA seeks to answer questions about who we are and where we come from.”

Lots of work still needs to be done to answer any significant questions about the origins of life on Earth, of course, but the initial discoveries “bode well” for the future. And what kind of questions could they answer? Well, there’s one theory that says Earth is inhabitable because water molecules trapped in clay minerals – as found in the Bennu sample – landed on Earth billions of years ago and resulted in the formation of our oceans, rivers, and lakes.

Other elements found in the materials could explain some key developments in the early stages of our home planet’s development. Sulphur was found, for example, which plays a role in geological reactions, alongside iron oxides that help catalyse organic chemical reactions.

It’s not all about the distant past, though. Analysis of Bennu could play an important role in humanity’s future, as well. That’s because the rock is categorised as a “near-Earth” asteroid, meaning there’s a low but still meaningful chance (around one in 1,750) that it could collide with Earth, most likely somewhere around the years 2175 to 2199. While it’s not technically big enough to render us extinct, the results would be devastating. Hopefully, though, it won’t come to that, because figuring out what it’s made of will help with develop precautionary measures.

In summary, Nelson says: “NASA missions like OSIRIS-REx will improve our understanding of asteroids that could threaten Earth while giving us a glimpse into what lies beyond. The sample has made it back to Earth, but there is still so much science to come – science like we’ve never seen before.”

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