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.
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.
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.
Asteroid Bennu samples found to contain five nitrogenous bases crucial to supporting life
Asteroids, small airless bodies within the inner solar system, are theorized to have contributed water and chemical building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago. Although meteorites on Earth come from asteroids,
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.
Bennu Asteroid Sample Reveals Organic Compounds That May Hint at Life Beyond Earth
NASA’s Bennu asteroid sample provides fresh insights into the potential for life beyond Earth, revealing key organic compounds and minerals.
Are we all aliens? NASA's returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients of life from a watery world
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost immediately.
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.
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.
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.
Asteroids like Bennu may have ‘delivered’ building blocks for life to Earth — Understanding NASA's new discovery
The latest discovery, unveiled by the NASA on January 29, came as a bit of a surprise and posed many exciting questions such as “Why didn't life form on Bennu?”
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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 ...
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Scientists reveal what they found in sample taken from Bennu asteroid
NASA has unveiled discoveries made from examining samples taken from the asteroid Bennu, which shed light on how widely the ...