Image of a black piece of equipment in a desert & photo of it falling from space

The OSIRIS-REx capsule plunged toward Earth at more than 27,000 miles per hour before landing in Utah.

NASA (falling capsule); NASA/Keegan Barber (capsule on ground)

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In September, a strange container parachuted into the Utah desert. The capsule’s landing marked the end of a seven-year journey in space. Scientists were eager to open it. What was inside? 

“There’s a whole treasure chest of extraterrestrial material,” says Dante Lauretta. He’s a professor at the University of Arizona and the mission’s lead scientist. 

The capsule contained pebbles and dust from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid named Bennu. The samples are the first that NASA, the U.S. space agency, has ever collected from an asteroid.

The mission began in 2016, when NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. It reached Bennu two years later. At the time, the asteroid was 200 million miles from Earth. The spacecraft spent another two years orbiting Bennu, taking photos and searching for the perfect spot to gather samples. 

Finally, in 2020, the spacecraft’s robotic arm carefully scooped up the samples. A few months later, OSIRIS-REx began the long trip back toward Earth. It dropped off the samples in a sealed capsule as it zoomed past our planet. 

A Lot to Learn

Early tests show that the samples contain water. Scientists think asteroids similar to Bennu may have crashed into Earth billions of years ago, bringing water to our planet. Lauretta says this is likely why Earth has oceans and lakes. 

NASA officials plan to share the samples from the space rock with more than 200 scientists around the world. They’ll also keep some for future generations of scientists in the U.S. to study. 

“This is a gift to the world,” says Lauretta.

Rock Stars

Here’s a quick guide to some different types of space rocks.

Detlev van Ravenswaay/Science Source

Asteroids orbit the sun and can be hundreds of miles wide.

Shutterstock.com

Meteoroids are often smaller pieces of asteroids. As they enter Earth’s atmosphere, we see flashes of light called meteors, or shooting stars.

Daniel Bockwoldt/picture alliance via Getty Images

Meteorites are pieces of meteoroids that reach Earth’s surface.

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