Nearly four years after NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft collected a sample from an asteroid, scientists are finally revealing the intriguing composition of the space rock.
Among them, the near-Earth asteroid, known as Bennu, contains a surprising reservoir of a mineral called magnesium phosphate. These bright-white particles sprinkled in a sea of Bennu’s dark rocks is a rare find in astromaterials, scientists say. “It’s no surprise that we initially thought this might be a contaminant,” said Jessica Barnes, an assistant professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) who’s leading the phosphate analysis in the returned sample.
The samples also show the widespread presence of glycine, the simplest amino acid and a crucial ingredient of proteins, as well as other water-bearing minerals, including carbonates, sulfites, olivine and magnetite, all of which are tangible evidence that Bennu’s parent body witnessed multiple water-related episodes before its fragments coalesced into Bennu.
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