(Washington, DC) — The first asteroid sample collected in space by NASA is back on Earth. NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft released a capsule containing soil from the asteroid Bennu which then safely parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday west of Salt Lake City. The robotic spacecraft was launched in 2016 and landed on the asteroid in 2020, where it collected a sample from the surface of Bennu. NASA says the mission will help scientists understand “how planets formed and how life began,” and “improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.”