Analysis of OSIRIS-REx Sample Shows Asteroid Bennu Has Ingredients for Life
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission successfully returned a generous chunk of the asteroid Bennu to Earth in 2023, and scientists have been analyzing it ever since. International scientific teams have published a pair of studies this week highlighting the incredible assortment of materials found in the sample.
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 asteroids hold molecules believed to be the precursors to these chemicals. By studying the Bennu samples, they hope to gain more insight into how these ingredients could have evolved.
Scientists Just Found DNA’s Building Blocks in Asteroid Bennu – Could This Explain Life’s Origins?
Japanese scientists detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back 121.6 grams of asteroid Bennu,
Historic asteroid sample reveals the ‘building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin,’ 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.
NASA finds key molecules for life in OSIRIS-REx asteroid samples. Here's what that means
NASA OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return team has revealed exciting evidence of the precursors of life in the pieces of space rock Bennu.
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 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.
Asteroid had 'all the stuff' to make life, OSIRIS-REx samples reveal
Bennu samples brought back by a University of Arizona-led space mission contain the key ingredients of life and signs of the stew needed to mix them.
The ingredients to life on Earth were discovered on a distant asteroid for the first time: NASA
Analysis of debris from the nearly 5 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu suggests the building blocks of DNA and RNA were present in the early days of our solar system.
Are We All Aliens? NASA's Returned Asteroid Samples Hold the Ingredients of Life From a Watery World
A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world
Building blocks of life found in samples from asteroid Bennu
Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best evidence to date that such space rocks may have seeded early Earth with the raw ingredients that fostered the emergence of living organisms.
Asteroid samples reveal secrets of an ancient water world
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth. CAPE CANAVERAL, ...
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Asteroid Bennu came from a distant, lost world of salty ponds
Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried ...
New analysis of asteroid dust reveals evidence of salty water in the early Solar System
Two new studies show a briny, carbon-rich environment on the parent body of the Bennu asteroid was suitable for assembling ...
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Seeds of life found in asteroid rubble pile
Two science teams pored over samples from the B-type asteroid Bennu, finding chemicals linked to the beginnings of life and ...