Scientists find life’s ‘building blocks’ in asteroid Bennu samples
The meteor fragments returned by OSIRIS-REx shed light on the entwined history of water and the chemical ingredients of life in the solar system.
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.
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 Uncovers Life’s Building Blocks in Asteroid Bennu’s Pristine Sample
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission delivered samples from asteroid Bennu, revealing crucial molecules linked to life, including amino acids and nucleobases found in DNA and RNA. The presence of ammonia and formaldehyde suggests conditions ripe for forming complex molecules in space.
Asteroid ‘Bennu’ Found to Contain More Building Blocks for Life Than Any Sample Ever Found–An Ancient Brine of Multivitamins
Bennu’s parent asteroid, which formed around 4.5 billion years ago, seems to have been home to pockets of liquid water.
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 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.
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 Says Asteroid Soil Contains 'Building Blocks for Life'
NASA researchers have been studying rock and dust brought back to Earth from the asteroid, Bennu. Those particles revealed what scientists call "the building blocks for life." Researchers found 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on Earth uses to make proteins.
Major discovery: A large number of building blocks of life... on an asteroid 🪐
Samples from the asteroid Bennu, brought back by the OSIRIS-REx mission, reveal key molecules for life. These discoveries shed light on the chemical processes that may have seeded Earth billions
The Bennu asteroid reveals clues to how the building blocks of life on Earth may have been seeded
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu and scientists got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have formed on Earth.
NASA scientists want to solve a mystery: Why did life "turn left?"
When NASA launched a spacecraft to an asteroid, scientists patiently waited for their chance to look at bits of the space ...
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 ...
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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 ...
One of California's most unusual lakes contains minerals found in space
Scientists recently discovered that San Bernardino County's Searles Lake contains minerals found in outer space.