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 remains of an ancient water world.
Bennu Asteroid Contains Material Needed for Life, NASA Mission Finds
This mineral-rich asteroid might have carried the seeds of life. Planetary scientists have discovered organic matter essential to life in dust and rock retrieved from an asteroid known as Bennu. The finding supports the theory that near-Earth asteroids,
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
Asteroid Bennu contains the 'seeds of life,' OSIRIS-REx samples reveal
Scientists have found all five nucelobases alongisde minerals essential for life as we know it on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu.
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.
Building blocks of life identified in sample collected from asteroid Bennu
This artist’s concept shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending towards asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona Scientists studying the sample collected in 2023 from asteroid Bennu have announced a dramatic finding: they have identified the key building blocks of life within the sample.
Bennu asteroid samples yield watery history, key molecules for life
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.
Building blocks of life discovered on asteroid Bennu
The building blocks for organic matter have been discovered on the asteroid Bennu, as deatiled in a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research gives new insight into how life originated on Earth and where we might find it elsewhere in the universe.
NASA Confirms Bennu Asteroid Holds Key Buildings Block To Life
A capsule carrying about a half cup of dust and rocks from an ancient asteroid named Bennu landed in the Utah desert in 2023. The samples were collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which sent a probe to rendezvous with Bennu in outer space.
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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 ...
Pristine asteroid samples reveal secrets of the ancient solar system
Curtin University researchers have gained an unprecedented glimpse into the early history of our solar system through some of the most well-preserved asteroid samples ever collected, potentially ...
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Scientists find a 'next step on a pathway to life' in space
Samples of matter returned from the asteroid Bennu support the theory that asteroids could have brought the building blocks of life to Earth, scientists report in a pair of new studies published ...