NASA needed help with a mission. The Vatican came to the rescue.

When a NASA robot scooped a cup of gravel from an asteroid 200 million miles away, scientists were stunned.

Bennu, an ancient space island the size of the Empire State Building, didn’t look or behave like they thought it would. Early temperature readings led them to believe it would be covered in tiny pebbles. Instead, closeup images showed boulders and a surface that acted like a plastic ball pit.

MORE: https://mashable.com/article/osiris-rex-asteroid-sample-vatican-astronomer