EXCLUSIVE: Scientist reveals what the mysterious black dust on the Bennu asteroid sample is likely to be – as NASA halts work until it is formally identified

NASA’s adventurous OSIRIS-REx space capsule that delivered a sample of an asteroid some 200 million miles away is already delivering surprises.

Agency staff broke open the space capsule on Tuesday and discovered that the inside of the lid is lined with a mysterious black material, forcing them to halt work.

Unlike the handful of rocks and dust ripped away from the asteroid’s surface, the black material looks finer, almost like dirt on a dirty car.

NASA said the material will undergo a “quick-look analysis” to see what exactly it is, but one scientist has weighed in ahead of the official verdict.

Speaking to MailOnline, Dr. Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University in Canberra, said the fine dust is also likely material from the asteroid.

Timelapse of the 5-minute period on October 20, 2020 when the spacecraft picked up the sample from Bennu – an asteroid 200 million miles away

‘The asteroid dirt is very dark and fine,’ Dr Tucker told MailOnline.

“When OSIRIS-REx performed the original touch-and-go maneuver to capture the samples, there were so many that the lid couldn’t close.”

NASA soon admitted after the grab in October 2020, that asteroid material leaked from OSIRIS-REx, because a rock was stuck in the mechanism.

“They finally solved it, so it looks like this is dust and soil from that,” Dr. Tucker added.

Professor Trevor Ireland, a geochemist at the University of Queensland, agreed that the black dust was kicked up during the sample collection.

‘Under microgravity there is nothing to stop the dust going everywhere, and probably back to the spacecraft,’ he told MailOnline.

Since the monster’s triumphant return to Earth on Sunday, NASA has only opened the capsule’s top lid, while Bennu’s rocky handful has been stowed away in another smaller component that needs to be opened.

The precious cargo is an estimated 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams of rocky material – only about half of what you’d find in an average-sized cereal box.

But NASA thinks it will be enough to reveal secrets about the composition of asteroids and “help us better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth.”

The pebbles and dust from Bennu – which could hit Earth in 2182 – represent the largest spoils from beyond the moon.

It was in September 2016 that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida – and did not arrive at Bennu until December 2018.

After mapping the asteroid for almost two years, he collected a sample of its surface on October 20, 2020. returning home – a round trip of 3.86 billion miles.

The craft carrying the precious sample landed on Sunday at a remote military compound in the western state of Utah.

Within two hours of landing, the capsule was in a temporary cleanroom at the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range, having been airlifted there by helicopter.

It was then flown to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where experts dressed in protective suits opened the capsule’s first lid on Tuesday and found the black dust.

NASA said in a statement: ‘Scientists found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the OSIRIS-REx science bus when the original cover was removed.

‘These operations take place in a new laboratory specifically designed for the OSIRIS-REx mission.

“The aluminum cover was removed into a glove compartment designed to accommodate the large piece of hardware.”

In the coming weeks, scientists will completely disassemble the capsule, extract and weigh the sample, take an inventory of the rocks and dust, and then distribute pieces of Bennu to scientists around the world.

A quarter of the sample will be given to a group of more than 200 people from 38 global institutions, including a team of scientists from the University of Manchester and the Natural History Museum in London.

Analysis should help researchers better understand the formation of the solar system and how Earth became habitable.

This is because the space rocks may be a snapshot of what these planets looked like at the time of their formation.

Professor Nick Timms from Curtin University thinks the Bennu sample could contain ‘molecular precursors’ to the origin of life.

‘We – the wider scientific team – will make very precise measurements of the structure, texture, minerals and geochemistry of the sample, down to the nanoscopic scale,’ he told MailOnline.

‘Chemical and isotopic characteristics of the grains and particles that make up the rock fragments can tell us a lot about the processes of how they formed and, in some cases, when they formed and their subsequent history.’

Bennu orbits the sun every 437 days and makes a close approach to Earth every six years – making it a ‘potentially hazardous object’

Bennu has a very small chance of hitting Earth in the next century, which one expert said would be “like unleashing 24 atomic bombs.”

By studying a sample of it, scientists can learn more about its composition and in turn identify ways to be prepared to defend against an impact.

NASA plans to announce the first results of the Bennu sample analysis at a press conference on October 11, which will be broadcast live on the agency’s website.