The US space agency (NASA) has announced that the sample of material brought to Earth by the Osiris-Rex mission from Bennu, a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid, contains water molecules and a high carbon content.
The mission managed to extract 250 grams of material, "the largest sample of carbon-rich asteroid ever brought to Earth, which will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our planet," said Bill Nelson, director from NASA.
Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the mission, has pointed out that the presence of carbon-rich material and clay minerals with water content "leads us to understanding not only our system, but also the potential for the beginning of life." .
NASA experts at the Johnson Space Center in Texas have been carefully separating the fragments of rock material they found not only inside the capsule, but on the outside, around the lid, and at the base.
For this task, Vanessa Wyche, the director of the center, explained how scientists and engineers "have worked for years to develop gloves and specialized tools to avoid contaminating the asteroid material."
In addition, scientists have taken scanning images with an electron microscope, as well as measurements with infrared light, X-ray diffraction, and analyzed the chemical elements. Computerized X-ray tomography has also been performed to produce a three-dimensional model of one of the particles that stands out for its diversity of materials.
Asteroid Bennu was discovered in 1999 and is believed to have formed from fragments of a much larger asteroid after a collision. Its size is half a kilometer wide and its black and rough surface is full of large rocks.
Scientists chose Bennu because it was assumed to be relatively rich in organic molecules and has a known orbit, making it easier for a mothership to arrive and take samples.
The Osiris-Rex mission began in September 2016 with the launch of a space probe and it was not until December 2018 when it began orbiting Bennu. In October 2020, Osiris-Rex landed on the asteroid, drilled its surface and collected the samples that the probe brought to Earth and which arrived on September 24.
