Harold Connolly Jr.

Hayabusa 1, which went to an asteroid called Itokawa and brought back tiny, teeny, tiny little grains because the collecting mechanism didn't quite work the way it was supposed to.

But then Hayabusa 2, which went to the carbonaceous asteroid Rugu, which was actually OSIRIS-REx's backup plan in case we couldn't figure out how to get to Bennu.

And they chose Rugu and went to Rugu and came home basically earlier than we did.

The analysis started in June of 2021.

And I was living in Tokyo at that time period for the beginning of the analysis of their

Yeah, it's both scientific, engineering, and cultural in the exchange.

We had co-wives on each other's team, which means members of each other's teams.

I was a member on both teams, and Shogo Tashibana from the University of Tokyo was a member on OSIRIS-REx, as well as in charge of analysis sample for Hayabusa 2.

And indeed, the early analysis of their sample, which they analyzed only 100 milligrams of, we had

We had 15 grams to work with with ours.

And actually, we were good boys and girls and didn't even get to 13.

We managed to get our goals achieved.

And they informed us on what the chemistry we should expect, what the minerals are we should expect, and how to take a deep dive into certain areas that turned out to be very important for findings, as you just talked about moments ago.

Yeah, absolutely great question.

First of all, the main type of meteorite we find on Earth that's like Bennu is called a CI-like meteorite, and there's only two handfuls of them in existence.

And it's very clear from both studying the sample from Ugu and the sample from Bennu that our sample collection is biased on Earth.

Not only is the sample collection contaminated, but what actually is out in space is biased because we have a lot of carbonaceous asteroids.

Now, turn the clock backward.

Bennu is fragments from collisions that occurred of different bodies together.

One of those bodies was a parent body, as we call it, a previous incarnation of Bennu at a much larger scale.