Bennu
In recent years, NASA has discovered an asteroid they call Bennu that may hold the same building blocks as life on Earth. The contents of the asteroid are older than our solar system and can give insight into the creation of the Sun, and the planets that orbit it. Bennu is very rich in carbon, the same material that life on Earth is formed around. Additionally, the skyscraper-sized asteroid has large deposits of water hidden beneath the surface that encompass other organic elements/compounds. Apart from the foundations of life, Bennu is rich in many other elements commonly found in asteroids, such as nickel and iron.
NASA's Mission
On it's way back from collecting samples from the asteroid, spacecraft OSIRIS-REx is a surveillance and reconnaissance space drone. Since the launch of the craft on September 8, 2016, the craft has made significant progress toward bringing back the 60-2000 gram samples it has collected. Two years after OSIRIS-REx was sent into space, it met the asteroid and used high-quality scanners to find an optimal area for landing and recovering materials. According to NASA's social media updates, the craft retrieved around 2 ounces of a yet to be known substance in October 2020. The scheduled landing back on Earth will take place sometime in the year 2023 and will be analyzed and studied thoroughly at NASA's Utah Testing Range.
Complications
Although the mission is seemingly a huge success, there have been issues with the retrieval of rock. When plunging its collection device 19 inches into the surface of Bennu, OSIRIS-REx collected too much material, overloading the capsule with hundreds of grams of rock. On a social media feed that NASA streamed to the public, a leak of debris from the craft discarded over 10 grams of the remaining material. Despite these challenges, OSIRIS-REx is still scheduled to land in 2023 with plenty of physical material on board.
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