Overview

• Three papers published August 22, 2025 in Nature Astronomy and Nature Geoscience report the first comprehensive peer-reviewed results from Bennu material returned in 2023.
• Investigators identified presolar grains predating the Sun, organic matter likely formed in interstellar space, and high-temperature minerals that originated near the early Sun, evidencing wide-ranging material transport.
• Mineralogical analyses indicate pervasive low-temperature aqueous alteration on Bennu’s parent body, with roughly 80% of minerals containing water, consistent with formation in the distant outer solar system.
• Microscopy of particle surfaces shows microscopic craters and impact melts from micrometeorites, revealing space weathering progressing more rapidly than previously thought.
• Data support Bennu as rubble from a larger asteroid shattered in the main belt, with returned samples more pristine than meteorites and comparisons to Ryugu refining models of early solar-system reservoirs.