Sample-return missions allow the study of materials collected directly from celestial bodies, unbiased by atmospheric entry effects and/or Earth alteration and contamination phenomena, using state-of-the-art techniques - but only if the collected material stays pristine. The scarcity of outer-space unaltered material recovered until now makes this material extremely precious. To maximize the scientific output of current and future sample-return missions, the scientific community needs to plan for ways of storing, handling, and measuring this precious material while preserving their pristine state for as long as the ‘invasiveness’ of measurements allows. In July 2021, as part of the Hayabusa2 (JAXA) “Stone” preliminary examination team, we received several microscopic particles from the asteroid Ryugu, with the goal of performing IR hyper-spectral imaging and IR micro-tomography studies. Here we describe the sample transfer, handling methods and analytical pipeline we implemented to study this very precious material while minimizing and surveilling their alteration history on Earth.
