NASA unveils newly returned carbon-rich asteroid sample

By Steve Gorman (Reuters) -NASA on Wednesday gave the public a first glimpse of what scientists found inside a tightly sealed capsule that was returned to Earth last month carrying a carbon-rich soil sample scooped from the surface of an asteroid, including water molecules locked inside clay-like minerals. A small portion of the material collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu was unveiled in an auditorium at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, a little more than two weeks after it was parachuted into the Utah desert. The landing of the ret...