4.5-billion-year-old sample of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu arrive on Earth: What's next?

A capsule with a 4.5-billion-year-old sample of rocks and dust collected from a nearby asteroid landed on Earth on Sunday, September 24. The sample - an estimated 250 grams - was collected from asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Scientists believe that the asteroid samples will help them better understand planet formation and the origin of organics and water that led to life on Earth. The samples will also benefit all of humanity by improving our understanding of potentially hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth in future.

"Successfully delivering samples from Bennu to Earth is a triumph of collaborative ingenuity and a testament to what we can accomplish when we unite with a common purpose. But let's not forget – while this may feel like the end of an incredible chapter, it’s truly just the beginning of another. We now have the unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the secrets of our solar system," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

After years of anticipation and hard work by NASA’s #OSIRISREx team, a capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu is on Earth. It landed at 8:52 a.m. MDT on Sept. 24, in the @DeptofDefense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City. https://t.co/iuGUpcRQAv pic.twitter.com/gViD6xdm5p

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) September 24, 2023

What's next?

Within an hour and a half after touching down at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range, the sample capsule was transported to a temporary clean room by helicopter. The team at the clean room team disassembled the sample capsule and packaged its components. The sample is scheduled to be transported in its unopened canister from Utah to its permanent home at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday, Sept. 25.

Curation scientists at the Johnson Space Center will disassemble the canister, extract and weigh the sample, create an inventory of the rocks and dust, and thereafter distribute the pieces of the asteroid Bennu to scientists worldwide.