Benu's sample is revealing secrets about the early solar system, and maybe even the origins of life.

This week on Planetary Radio.

I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond.

NASA's Osiris Rex mission returned a pristine asteroid sample that's giving us an unprecedented

look at Benu's chemistry and history.

In this episode, we're exploring the first published analyses of the Benu sample with Scott

Sanford, co-investigator on Osiris Rex, and research scientists at NASA Ames Research Center.

Scott has spent nearly four decades investigating extraterrestrial materials,

and today he's going to help us understand why Benu's organics and minerals are rewriting

what we thought we knew about asteroid chemistry.

Then we'll check in with Bruce Betts for What's Up, where we take a look at humanity's history

of sample return missions, from the Apollo Moon Rocks to Comet Dust and Martian Plans for

the future.

If you love planetary radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries,

make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with awe-inspiring

ways to know the cosmos and our place within it. Before moving on to our main story, we have

some updates on the exciting lunar missions that launched last week, including Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost

Lander, which landed on the moon on March 2, 2025. The Blue Ghost mission is part of NASA's

commercial lunar payload services, or Eclipse initiative. It delivered 10 NASA science and technology

instruments to the lunar surface, along with a project our organization is super excited

about, PlanetVAC. PlanetVac is a planetary society-supported technology built by honeybee robotics.

It's designed to collect samples from other worlds. We funded PlanetVac tests in 2013 and 18,

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