Asteroid Bennu Samples Contain Stardust Older Than Our Solar System

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The ambitious mission to retrieve samples from asteroid Bennu and return them to Earth is paying off.

Just as scientists had hoped, the asteroid is revealing details about the early days in our Solar System. More than just a simple space rock, Bennu contains not only material from the Solar System, but material from beyond our system.

Bennu follows an orbit that brings it close to Earth every six years. That means it's classified as a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) and a potentially hazardous object (PHO).

When NASA was planning the OSIRIS-REx mission that visited Bennu and returned the sample, it was the result of a vigorous scientific and engineering evaluation of candidate asteroids.

Since Bennu is both close to Earth and a primitive carbonaceous asteroid, NASA settled on it as the target.

The asteroid is both large enough to orbit and collect a sample from, and spectroscopic analysis of its surface showed it contained things scientists wanted to study, like carbon-rich materials and hydrated minerals.

Jessica Barnes, associate professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is a co-lead author on one of the publications.

"It's super exciting that we're finally able to say these things about an asteroid that we've been dreaming of going to for so long and eventually brought back samples from."