6 watershed moments in science from 2024 that will shape the future

In 2020, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer spacecraft managed to briefly touchdown on the asteroid Bennu, steal some of its pristine material, then drop it off back on Earth in September 2023. This isn’t the first time a spacecraft has stolen matter from an asteroid (Japan has accomplished this twice), but OSIRIS-REx’s 121.6 grams of asteroidal grains is by far the largest sample of pristine matter ever retrieved.

Asteroids are the debris left over from the violent formation of the solar system. These building blocks not only contain the minerals that went into making the planets—including Earth—but also the chemistry that created our seas and oceans, and perhaps even the compounds that seeded the very first lifeforms.

This year, scientists got their very first look at OSIRIS-REx’s sample, and they are in awe at what it’s telling them: the Sun was forged via the deaths of multiple stars, from low-mass ones to those big enough to detonate as powerful supernovae; strange molecules in the sample suggest it came from a destroyed geologically active world; and an array of prebiotic compounds, including all sorts of amino acids, were found within that primeval asteroid. 

In short, this sample is already rewriting what we know about the solar system’s origins—and scientists have only studied one percent of it. Who knows what else it has in store? 

Artificial Intelligence unravels the secrets of proteins

As AI becomes more visibly part of our lives, it’s regarded with more suspicion, but this year, it became clear that it was going to help reveal how life itself works.