NASA has revealed the very first peek at the sample collected by OSIRIS-REx — the space agency's first successful mission to collect a rock chunk from a distant asteroid.
Related: NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule returns to Earth with a sample from the 'potentially hazardous' asteroid Bennu Earth's water is older than the planet itself and was probably brought here by asteroid and comet impacts. But water wasn't the only material asteroids brought to Earth: The building blocks of life likely hitched a ride on a space rock, too. Bennu is a B-type asteroid, which means it contains high amounts of carbon and, potentially, many of the primordial molecules present when life emerged on Earth.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more: