NASA scientists revealed the sample collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission from near-Earth asteroid Bennu for the first time Wednesday.
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — A pristine asteroid sample that could serve as a time capsule from the early days of our solar system has finally been revealed. The rocks and dust contain water and a large amount of carbon, said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, which suggests that asteroids may have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth. The sample is nearly 5% carbon by weight, making it one of the highest concentrations of carbon to be studied in an asteroid, according to Dr. Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Far exceeding our goal of 60 grams, this is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth," Nelson said. "The carbon and water molecules are exactly the kinds of material that we wanted to find. They're crucial elements in the formation of our own planet. And they're going to help us determine the origin of elements that could have led to life." A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector shows material from asteroid Bennu that can be seen on the middle right. Scientists have found evidence of both carbon and water in initial analysis of this material. The bulk of the sample is located inside. Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold/NASA The sample, collected from the 4.5 billion-year-old near-Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, arrived on Earth in a capsule on September 24, dropping from the spacecraft and landing in the Utah desert. Since then, scientists have been hard at work studying the wealth of material — more than they expected — just inside the top of the canister to conduct an early analysis. The results of that analysis, and the first look at the sample, were shared during a live NASA broadcast from the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday. It's the largest asteroid…