The newest space mission of the US space agency NASA is looking forward to offer more details regarding the history of the solar system and life’s origin.

It is an asteroid sample return mission known as the OSIRIS-REx mission (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security and Regolith Explorer).

Amy Simon, the mission’s instrument scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said that it will be flying to a near Earth asteroid, map out the surface and indulge into rocks and soil collection to carry them to Earth for study in laboratories.

Scientists have high hopes that the mission will be helpful in answering some lofty space-related queries.

NASA Astrobiologist Daniel Glavin said that there are many questions like how did life begin on our planet? Is there any possibility that meteorites seeded other planets in our solar system, like Mars?

A spacecraft is going to take a flight to a close by asteroid known asBennu, study it with the help of its exterior with pictures and other technology, and then will fly over it to use a vacuum-like device for sample collection to bring it back down on our planet.

Simon said, “What we want to learn is about building blocks of solar system.This is very dark asteroid. We think it has carbon and hydrocarbons, organics. We want to understand what pieces were around solar system, how they contributed to life here on Earth”.

Glavin mentioned that as per one of the theories, meteorites belonging to asteroids and comets might have seeded the initial Earth with a few of the stepping stones of the life.Glavin said that on the basis of meteorite analyses, they have found that some of these meteorites possess these strange compounds, but they were polluted by the Earth.

A report published in CBS LOCAL informed, "Launching next month, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft will travel two years and millions of miles to an asteroid named Bennu. Once there, the spacecraft will collect surface dirt and rocks from the asteroid, bringing back samples to Earth from 4.5 billion years ago."

“It kind of gives me chills, actually,” said Dr. Daniel Glavin. “The idea that these asteroids are prebiotic chemical factories, they’re making the building blocks of life.”

Lab work at the Goddard Space Flight Center has found organic compounds in the meteorites that hit the Earth, but they were contaminated. Osiris-Rex will send back the first pristine samples of what rained down long ago on a very young Earth. If everything works, the asteroid samples will reach Earth and the NASA lab in Maryland by 2023.

According to a report in WTOP by Dennis Foley, "A space craft will fly to a nearby asteroid named Bennu, analyze it using its exterior with photos and other technology, and then will hover over it to use a vacuum-like device to collect a sample to take back to Earth."

“Most of the planets and moons were pretty thoroughly melted, so they don’t preserve the chemistry and the rock structures that existed early in the solar system history,” Lucy Lim, OSIRIS-REx assistant project scientist, explained. “Certain types of asteroids are made out of the leftovers from the solar system’s formation, so they preserve a lot more of the chemistry that was present 4.5 billion years ago at the beginning of the solar system’s formation.”

So, researchers want to have a better idea of whether this asteroid, which Simon described as being the size of a large mountain, truly does pose a threat to Earth. If it does, “[We could] potentially build a big laser or find other ways to push it a little bit if it turns out that it could impact the Earth,” Glavin explained in jest.