Billions of years ago, our solar system coalesced within an interstellar molecular cloud, a nursery made up of gas and dust that clumped together to form stars, asteroids, and planets—eventually, our own Earth.

Some astronomers think life’s heritage must have begun off-planet, because amino acids have been discovered in meteorites, celestial time capsules composed of the same primitive materials from which our solar system formed.

A team of researchers at NASA’s Cosmic Ice Laboratory set out to investigate this discrepancy by simulating the chemical activities of interstellar molecular clouds and asteroids, two places known to form amino acids.

The rest of the Bennu sample, like those from the Apollo mission 50 years ago, will be tucked away in airtight containers to give not-yet-born scientists a chance to analyze the asteroid with not-yet-invented techniques and technologies.

“It’s hard to trace history this way.” Instead, Bromberg looks for the genetic blueprints for making cellular energy, a process that could have been invented by—and inherited from—ancient proteins created from Earth’s initial ooze.

But while she favors a planetary origin, Bromberg doesn’t think only Earth could give rise to life: “My suspicion is that you can make amino acids from any primordial soup, regardless of the planet you are on,” she says.