Two years ago the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped off the samples it collected of the asteroid Bennu. I’ve been fascinated by our ability to fly a spacecraft to an asteroid, which is also rapidly hurling through space, do a “touch and go” to collected samples, then fly back to earth, drop the samples off and continue on to another asteroid. Today I did a quick search to see what has been learned about Bennu. Recent reports state that Bennu is “a mixture of dust that formed in our solar system, organic matter from interstellar space, and pre-solar system stardust. Its unique and varied contents were dramatically transformed over time by interactions with water and exposure to the harsh space environment.” [Source] and “In addition to the five nitrogenous bases – adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil – required for building DNA and RNA, the researchers also found xanthine, hypoxanthine, and nicotinic acid (vitamin B3).” [Source]. OSIRIS-Rex has been renamed OSIRIS-APEX and is currently flying toward another asteroid, Apophis, which it is scheduled to meet up with in 2029.