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The Take: OSIRIS-REx – the space mission to find the origins of life

A NASA mission to collect samples from an asteroid older than Earth could change our understanding of the solar system.

The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, Utah, U.S. September 24, 2023
The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the US Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, Utah, on September 24, 2023 [File: NASA/Keegan Barber/Reuters]
Published On 16 Jan 2024

Why did life happen on Earth? And how did it begin? Even the world’s most advanced space scientists still don’t fully understand these questions, but a mission by NASA called OSIRIS-REx hopes to fill in the missing chapters from Earth’s origin story. The spacecraft travelled billions of kilometres to look for answers on the asteroid Bennu, which researchers describe as a time capsule from the earliest days of the solar system.

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In this episode: 

  • Colin Baker (@airlockben), Al Jazeera news editor
  • Zack Gainsforth (@zgainsforth), space scientist, University of California, Berkeley
  • Pierre Haenecour (@stardustpierre), cosmochemist, University of Arizona
  • Ashley King (@ashleyjking85), planetary scientist, Natural History Museum

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Miranda Lin and our host Kevin Hirten, in for Malika Bilal. Shrijan Pandey, Zaina Badr and Kara Dauletkanova fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik, and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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Source: Al Jazeera