Unravelling the Secrets of Early Solar System Processes Through Laboratory Investigations of Regolith from a Type C Asteroid

研究地外样本的最大挑战之一是，许多地质背景都缺失了，而在地球上，我们甚至可以在收集样本和随后的实验室分析之前获得有关位置、方向、周围岩石等方面的现场信息。正在进行的探测原始c型小行星（可能是碳质球粒陨石的母体）的太空任务（OSIRIS-Rex和隼鸟2号）计划在本世纪20年代初带回数克到数公斤的物质。他们将从一颗特定的小行星上收集样本，但他们收集的样本将来自混合良好的表面风化层，从本质上讲，这些风化层几乎没有地质背景。

One of the biggest challenges with the study of extra-terrestrial samples is that much of the geological context is missing, whereas on Earth we can have access to field information about location, orientation, surrounding rocks, etc before even collecting a sample and subsequent laboratory analyses. On-going space missions (OSIRIS-Rex and Hayabusa2) to primitive C-type asteroids (likely parent bodies for carbonaceous chondrite meteorites) are scheduled to return grams to kgs of material in the early 2020s. They will collect samples from a specific asteroid, but the samples they collect will be grabbed from the well-mixed surface regolith, which by its very nature contains little geological context.