That's it from Nasa at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they've revealed more about the sample they extracted from the asteroid Bennu by first blasting it with nitrogen then grabbing a chunk and bringing it to Earth.

We'll get more information in the coming days, weeks and months about what Bennu is made up of - and it's hoped this will help scientists learn more about our Solar System and also how life began on our planet.

You can read more about the material Nasa gathered from Bennu in this story by our science correspondent Jon Amos.

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

"It's beautiful, it really is - certainly what we've seen of it so far," said Dr Ashley King.

The UK scientist was in a select group to put first eyes and instruments on the rocky samples that have just been brought back from asteroid Bennu.

The materials, scooped up by a Nasa mission and returned to Earth 17 days ago, are currently being examined in a special lab in Texas.

"We've confirmed we went to the right asteroid," Dr King told BBC News.

The three-day analysis by the Natural History Museum expert and five others on the "Quick Look" team showed the black, extraterrestrial powder to be rich in carbon and water-laden minerals.

It's a good sign the samples taken from the 500m-wide asteroid will be able to reveal new information about the formation of the Solar System some 4.6 billion years ago.

• Read our full story on the Bennu sample here

Image source, NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold

The stream is showing the contents of the capsule which brought back space dust from the asteroid Bennu.

It's being shown to the audience in Houston as a video because the sample is being kept in a clean environment to prevent contamination from material on Earth.

Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson says the dust being shown on the screen should help us investigate how planets form, our solar system, and how asteroids may affect us here on Earth.

Numerous scientists, including in the UK, are hoping to get the chance to analyse any materials brought back from Bennu - among them Sara Russell from London's Natural History Museum.

"Asteroids like Bennu formed in the very, very earliest times of the Solar System. They are basically the building blocks of the planets - a time capsule that will tell us how the Sun and the planets came into being and evolved. Bennu can really help us to drill down into how that process actually happens," she told BBC News.

Bennu probably contains a lot of water - as much as 10% by weight - bound up in its minerals. Scientists will be looking to see if the ratio of different types of hydrogen atoms in this water is similar to that in Earth's oceans.

If, as some experts believe, the early Earth was so hot that it lost much of its water, then finding an H₂O match with Bennu would bolster the idea that later bombardment from asteroids was important in providing volume for our oceans.

Bennu probably also contains about 5-10% by weight of carbon. This is where a lot of the interest lies. As we know, life on our planet is based on organic chemistry. As well as water, did complex molecules have to be delivered from space to kickstart biology on the young Earth?

Welcome to our live stream from Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where we're about to learn more about the space rock grabbed from asteroid Bennu and brought back to Earth.

You might remember last month a capsule containing material gathered from the asteroid was returned to Earth, landing in a remote part of the Utah desert in the western US.

Since then scientists have been carefully removing the material from the capsule and today we should learn more about what was inside.

Once it's all accounted for the space dust will be examined - in part because there is an outside chance of Bennu hitting our planet in the next 300 years, but also because the samples are likely to provide fresh insights into the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago and possibly even how life got started on our world.

You can watch the stream from Nasa by clicking on the Play button in the picture above.