Overview

• Three peer‑reviewed papers published in Nature Astronomy and Nature Geoscience detail Bennu’s formation from a larger parent asteroid that broke apart in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• Analyses identify material from the outer solar system along with interstellar organic matter and presolar stardust grains within the returned sample.
• Researchers report evidence that Bennu’s rocks were altered by water and later reshaped by space weathering over time.
• Canada will host just under five grams of the 122‑gram return through a coordinated transfer with NASA in recognition of its OLA laser altimeter contribution.
• The Canadian Space Agency began building a dedicated curation clean room south of Montreal in January 2025 to protect the pristine grains from water, organics and plastics.