Why did life happen on Earth? And how did it begin? Even the world’s most advanced space scientists still don’t fully understand these questions, but a mission by NASA called OSIRIS-REx hopes to fill in the missing chapters from Earth’s origin story. The spacecraft traveled billions of kilometers to the asteroid Bennu, which researchers describe as a time capsule from the earliest days of the solar system.

In this episode:

Colin Baker (@airlockben), Al Jazeera News Editor
Zack Gainsforth (@zgainsforth), Space Scientist, UC Berkeley
Pierre Haenecour (@stardustpierre), Cosmochemist, University of Arizona
Ashley King (@ashleyjking85), Planetary Scientist, Natural History Museum

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Miranda Lin and our host Kevin Hirten, in for Malika Bilal. Shrijan Pandey, Zaina Badr and Kara Dauletkanova fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.

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OSIRIS-REx: The space mission to find the origins of life