Scientists Discover Traces of Salt Water and Building Blocks of Life in NASA's Samples From the Asteroid Bennu
In a triumph for NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, new findings suggest that tiny bits of rock retrieved from the asteroid Bennu hold lingering traces of ancient salt water. The discovery hints that life-friendly chemistry could be far more common in space than astronomers previously thought.
Scientists find life-friendly molecules in NASA’s asteroid samples
Molecules friendly to life have been found in samples of the asteroid Bennu, which NASA collected with a robotic probe five years ago.
Asteroid Bennu Samples Contain Building Blocks of Life
Samples of Bennu were brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2023. Now, a pair of newly published papers reveal that the samples contain precursors to life that formed in a watery environment—a watery environment very similar to the one that prevailed on Earth before life emerged up to four billion years ago.
NASA’s Bennu asteroid samples reveal building blocks of life, say scientists
Scientists have discovered essential life-building compounds in dust from asteroid Bennu, supporting the theory that asteroids contributed to life on Earth and other worlds in the Solar System.
Asteroid samples hint at how life formed on Earth, researchers say
When asteroids like Bennu hit the young Earth, they could have provided a complete package of complex molecules and the ingredients essential to life, such as water, phosphate and ammonia. Together, these components could have seeded Earth’s initially barren landscape to produce a habitable world.
Scientists find traces of life’s building blocks in historic asteroid samples
It took a while for scientists to gain access to the samples that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission took from the asteroid Bennu, but the wait is proving to be worth it. A new study published January 29 in Nature describes an unexpected discovery in the material delivered by OSIRIS-REx: residues of compounds left over by the evaporation of liquid water.
Asteroid Bennu Is Packed with Life’s Building Blocks, New Studies Confirm
Material retrieved from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows that all the basic building blocks of life were astonishingly widespread in the early solar system
Unprecedented asteroid samples contain organic compounds and minerals crucial to life, scientists say
Scientists have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in the samples collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission from a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu.
Minerals Crucial to Life Found in Asteroid Samples From Space
The building blocks for life, including salts, organic matter and amino acids have been found in samples returned to Earth from outer space.
NASA brought back samples from asteroid Bennu. They revealed clues about the possible origins of life.
A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty ...
NASA's asteroid sample reveals key chemistry that could lead to life
All forms of Earth life have specific chemicals in their makeup, such as amino acids and sugars. Scientists have known that ...
Lurking Inside an Asteroid: Life’s Ingredients
Scientists studying samples that NASA collected from the asteroid Bennu found a wide assortment of organic molecules that ...
NASA’s returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients to life plus salts from an ancient water world
Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient ...
Newly Discovered Asteroid Has a 1.2 Percent Earth Impact Risk
A 200-foot-wide asteroid found in December has a one-in-83 chance of hitting Earth, according to space agencies.