After returning to Earth with great fanfare late last month, NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule revealed details of America's first asteroid sample earlier today. The OSIRIS-REx mission flew to the asteroid Bennu after its launch in 2016. This sample return culminated the seven-year mission. A sample of the asteroid was packaged in a carefully protective box and delivered to Earth.
OSIRIS-REx capsule. Image: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld&JosephAebersoldNASA/ErikaBlumenfeld&JosephAebersold
NASA's preliminary study of asteroid rocks shows that the samples contain some of the building blocks of life, namely water and carbon. A key part of NASA's investigation is determining the role Bennu or other extraterrestrial material may have played in the origin of life on Earth. According to NASA, the OSIRIS-REx sample had the highest abundance of carbon material of all the extraterrestrial material analyzed by Carnegie University.
As part of the OSIRIS-REx sample reveal, NASA held a press conference earlier today, where agency officials and analysts shared some details about its findings. Not only did NASA obtain some "extra" material from Bennu - rocks embedded in jars - but the samples analyzed also demonstrated the fact that the material that enabled life on Earth to evolve likely originated in space. NASA's goal was to collect 60 grams of rock from Bennu, but according to preliminary estimates, the agency recovered about 250 grams of material.
One NASA scientist studying these samples is Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx program. Dr. Lauretta explained that analysis of Bennu rocks using electron microscopy revealed that the clay minerals had water locked into their crystal structures. According to him, this structure could allow us to understand how water enters the Earth to make it habitable.
The samples also contained sulfur, a mineral critical to planetary evolution and protein structure. Finally, iron oxide minerals that respond to magnetic fields have also been discovered, including those that may have played a role in the origin of life on Earth.
Dr. Daniel Glavin, sample analyst for OSIRIS-REx, shared details of the carbon found on the asteroid rock. According to him, the Carnegie Institution for Science conducted carbon analysis on the samples and found 4.7% carbon - the highest proportion found among the 250 extraterrestrial samples analyzed by the Carnegie Institution.
Ultraviolet analysis of the rock grains was also performed and showed the presence of carbon in the center of the grains, which was locked in the mineral grains. The organic globules surrounding the carbon are clearly visible like "stars" in the rock grain structure. The investigation aims to understand whether extraterrestrial rocks may have "seeded" pre-biochemicals on Earth that helped life evolve.
Scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center spent more than a week taking the capsule apart to access its contents. The samples were subjected to electron microscopy, chemical analysis, X-ray-based computed tomography and infrared light analysis. Through these methods, researchers can learn about the composition of rocks and thus study whether they provide any clues about the origin of life on Earth.
The asteroid "Bennu" is believed to be 4.5 billion years old, which means it can provide important details about the origin of life on Earth and its formation. NASA selected the asteroid Bennu for exploration in 2005. Factors that influenced the decision included its distance from the sun, its orbit and the presence of carbon.