The Osiris-Rex spacecraft successfully picked up the materials from an asteroid called Bennu in October 2020, 205 million miles from Earth. It then took almost three years for the NASA probe to come home and drop off its precious cargo in a Utah desert. That happened on 24 September. Now, what the probe contained is being revealed.
As it's less than a month since NASA got its hands on this 'first of its kind' cargo, there are - as yet - no earth shattering results. However, the good news is that the black, extraterrestrial powder has already proved to be rich in carbon and water-laden minerals.
It's a good sign that the samples taken from the 500m wide asteroid will be able to reveal new information about the formation of the Solar System, billions of years ago.
Bennu interests scientists because it likely retains the chemistry that existed when the planets began forming around the nascent Sun. There's a theory that carbon-rich (organic), water-rich asteroids similar to Bennu may have been involved in delivering key components to the Earth system, such as the water in our oceans and some of the compounds that had a role in kick-starting life.
The researchers, when they examine the returned samples in detail, will be looking for indications that might support or counter these ideas.
"We're going to get a lot of new information from Bennu to really understand exactly just how complex are these organic molecules that we find," explained Dr Lori Glaze, the director of planetary science at NASA.
"The samples will feed our understanding of how the earliest organic building blocks might have come together to form life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the Solar System, too. I think that's going to be incredibly valuable," she told BBC News.