Back to Earth Package from far, far away may explain origins of life

Tomorrow morning, somewhere above the Utah desert, a parachute will open and a capsule containing about 250g of rubble will float to the ground. As it descends, four helicopters bearing scientists, engineers and military safety personnel will cross the arid landscape to recover it.

- Nicola Davis

Because this is not just any old dirt: these are 4.6bn-year-old chunks of space rock that could shed light on how planets formed and how life itself began.

"These are some of the oldest materials formed in our solar system," says Ashley King, a fellow at the Natural History Museum in London. He adds: "Samples from asteroids tell us what all those ingredients were for making a planet like the Earth and they also tell us what the recipe was - so how did those materials come together and start mixing together to end up with [habitable environments]?"

The final act of Nasa's OsirisRex mission might seem like the opening sequence of an action film, but it is the culmination of a seven-year journey in which a robotic spacecraft the size of a Transit van was sent to study - and then plunder - the pile of rubble that comprises the asteroid Bennu.