Half a gram of the Bennu sample brought back by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx was analysed at ETH Zurich by Maria Schönbächler’s team, who measured iron, titanium and chromium isotopes as a chemical fingerprint. Bennu, Ryugu and CI meteorites match each other but no other known group, which the authors explain with dust mixing near the early water-ice line, where young Jupiter may have filtered what passed. “Bennu is a hybrid,” Schönbächler says. The Jupiter role is a proposed scenario, not yet confirmed (Science Advances, September 2026).
0.5 gof Bennu sample analysed in Zurich
Fe · Ti · Crisotopes used as a fingerprint
3look-alikes: Bennu, Ryugu, CI meteorites