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The initial results of studies of samples collected from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid were unveiled by NASA on Wednesday.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has collected samples from Bennu -- a 4.5 billion-year-old "near-Earth" asteroid that has a slight chance of a planetary collision 159 years from now -- and they could show, as the agency described it, "the building blocks of life on Earth."
Samples of asteroid Bennu delivered by the OSIRIS-REx mission include carbon, water and other ingredients of the primordial Solar System. Samples of asteroid Bennu delivered by the OSIRIS-REx mission include carbon, water and other ingredients of the primordial Solar System.
This fall, NASA is all about asteroids. OSIRIS-REx's brought samples from Bennu; Psyche will visit a space rock; and the Lucy spacecraft will fly by an asteroid.
This fall, NASA marks milestones in three different missions that explore unanswered questions about the process that made Earth, the stuff that makes the solar system and how we might save ourselves should a much larger space rock come hurtling our way.