NASA’s Osiris Rex spacecraft has returned to Earth after seven years.

The capsule landed by parachute in the Utah desert, with its precious cargo – a sample of the asteroid Bennu.

On a flight to Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from a distance of 100,000 km. The small capsule landed four hours later in a remote area as the craft set off in search of another asteroid.

Scientists estimate the capsule contains materials from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won’t know for sure until they open the container.

The rocks and dust delivered on Sunday are the largest collection of such a sample from space.

Engineers estimate the container contains about 250 grams of material from Bennu, and the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.

“It will take a few weeks to get an accurate measurement,” NASA said

A large complex mission has been organized to retrieve the capsule containing the asteroid samples. The recovery must be done very carefully so that the capsule remains sealed and some of the space rock material does not leak out and there is no risk of leaking other potentially dangerous material (eg some viruses) until the capsule is transported by helicopter to the NASA laboratories where the material will be analyzed.

Bennu is listed as a B-type asteroid, meaning it has a lot of carbon along with its other materials. This is an asteroid whose surface reflects about 4% of the light that falls on it, and which has not undergone many changes in its composition – which in turn means that it has chemicals and rocks from the time of the formation of the Sun. our system.

According to Reuters, NASA is planning a public presentation in October. The success of the mission, a joint effort between NASA and the University of Arizona, will mark the third asteroid sample and by far the largest ever returned to Earth for analysis, following two similar missions by Japan’s space agency.