Author: Nick Timms, Associate Professor, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University

In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-metre-wide asteroid 320 million kilometres from Earth. As part of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, the spacecraft not only spent two years orbiting and imaging the asteroid, it also collected a precious sample of dust and small rocks from Bennu’s rubbly surface. In September 2023, a capsule containing the pristine asteroid sample returned to Earth, landing in the Utah desert in the United States. Since then, an international team of scientists – of which we are members – have been busy studying the roughly 120 grams…