Last week, NASA engineers uncapped the TAGSAM capsule that brought samples of the asteroid Bennu to Earth, and now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s website has posted a high-quality photo showing the soil samples. The view is so beautiful that you can touch 4.5 billion-year-old rocks and dust.

Work will now begin to examine the samples. As Lindsay Keller, a member of the OSIRIS-REx project team that delivered samples from Bennu, previously noted, scientists plan to take full advantage of microanalytical methods to conduct in-depth studies and even “literally split the samples into atoms.”

Asteroid Bennu, whose age is estimated to be 4.5 billion years, may be the key to elucidating the formation of the Solar System.

Initially, scientists planned to take about 60 grams of regolith from the asteroid, but in fact more material was found: only 70 grams of samples were collected from the design elements of the TAGSAM capsule. Scientists also found traces of carbon and water in material outside TAGSAM.