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.
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.
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 from a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu.
Minerals Crucial to Life Found in Asteroid Samples From Space
The building blocks for life, including salts, organic matter and amino acids have been found in samples returned to Earth from outer space.
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.
Breakthrough Discovery: Asteroid Fragments Reveal Ingredients For Life
In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-metre-wide asteroid 320 million kilometres from Earth.
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.
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 shed light on how life arose.
Dust from asteroid Bennu shows: Building blocks of life and possible habitats were widespread in our solar system
With the OSIRIS-REx space probe, the NASA space agency succeeded in collecting some material from the surface of asteroid Bennu, which arrived on Earth in a small capsule in 2023. The analysis of the material by more than 40 scientific teams worldwide – including the team led by Prof.
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.
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Scientists find building blocks of life in OSIRIS-REx...
Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission recently delivered remarkable findings about asteroid ...
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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 ...
A NASA spacecraft scooped rubble from an asteroid. Here's what was inside
Scientists have finally had a close look at the rubble collected by a spacecraft from the asteroid Bennu. Here's what they found inside and what it could tell us about the origin of life on Earth.
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New analysis of asteroid dust reveals evidence of salty water in early Solar System
In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-metre-wide asteroid 320 ...
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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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Asteroid as wide as 886 cans of spam may hit Earth in 2032
Video Astronomers reckon a 220-million-kilogram asteroid is going to swing by Earth in 2032 with a 1-in-100 chance of hitting ...
Asteroid Bennu has all five amino acids for genetic material
Samples from the asteroid Bennu contain the building blocks of life as we know it. Scientists are enthusiastic.