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,
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.
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 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.
NASA scientists find 'ingredients for life' in asteroid sample
Samples of asteroid Bennu contain molecules that suggest the "conditions necessary for life" were widespread across the early solar system, according to NASA.
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.
Bennu Asteroid Contains Material Needed for Life, NASA Mission Finds
The discovery supports the theory that asteroids seeded life on Earth.
NASA finds ‘key to life’ in Bennu asteroid samples
Rock and dust samples from the Bennu asteroid contain molecules that are the "key to life" on Earth, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.
NASA’s findings from asteroid Bennu suggest solar system could be ‘teeming with the potential for life’
The rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu hold amino acids, ammonia and other molecules essential to life on Earth, NASA reported Wednesday. The findings suggest the conditions necessary for life were widespread across the early solar system and boost the odds that life could have developed elsewhere.
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 ...
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Brine From Asteroid Bennu Reveals Conditions Suitable For Life In Early Solar System
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought back to Earth 121 grams of material from asteroid Bennu. This is the largest sample ever collected ...
Lurking inside an asteroid: life’s ingredients
Scientists studying samples that NASA collected from the asteroid Bennu found a wide assortment of organic molecules that ...
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 ...
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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 ...