The material that the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft returned from asteroid Ryugu is the most pristine sample we’ve ever gotten our hands on.

Tests at two laboratories show that the dark grains that the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft collected from the carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid 162,173 Ryugu are the most primitive materials known in the solar system.

“In this body you see hydrated materials and signs of organics from very early in the formation of the solar system — that’s exciting!” says Deborah Domingue (Planetary Science Institute), who was not involved in those studies but did earlier analysis of remote sensing data of Ryugu.