This artist’s concept shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending towards asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the ...

Scientists have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in the samples collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission ...

WASHINGTON – NASA has unveiled discoveries made from examining a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu, which sheds light on how widely the building blocks of life exist in the universe.

The first compound the team discovered in the Bennu sample was sodium carbonate, which had never been observed before in any other asteroid or meteorite. As it incorporates water into its crystal ...

By studying the Bennu samples, they hope to gain more insight into how these ingredients could have evolved. An important reason NASA selected Bennu for the sample return mission is because of its ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and ...

“Comparing the sample return to meteorites in our Collection, using state-of-the-art analytical facilities here in the Museum, is invaluable in helping us understand our origins.” Bennu is thought to ...

Nearly 60 years later, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu, similar to the one that rained rocks over Revelstoke. Our research team has ...

More:High resolution photos of asteroid materials revealed. How NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft brought Bennu sample back to Earth. The findings were reported in two journal articles on Wednesday.

The sample, which the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected from the asteroid Bennu and returned to Earth in 2023, contains all five nucleobases — the "letters" that make up DNA and RNA — alongside ...

The sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. It marked the ...