Earth got a special delivery recently: a little pod plonked down in the Utah desert, containing a few hundred grams sampled from the surface of an asteroid. This isn't the first sample return mission, but it's definitely the biggest. The little parcel of asteroid dirt inside is now being very carefully handed out to researchers across the globe, and we're going to learn loads of important stuff, like what asteroids are made of, how we might stop one from hitting us ... and even, maybe, just maybe, whether they contain the building blocks of life.

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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The OSIRIS-REx mission

• Landing in the desert (NASA video stream)

• Grabbing the sample in 2020

• Sample return missions

• Asteroid Bennu

• OSIRIS-APEX

• Asteroid Apophis

• The Asteroid Belt