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 rock in a laboratory, hoping it would answer some of humanity's most enduring questions.
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 essential to life in dust and rock retrieved from an asteroid known as Bennu. The finding supports the theory that near-Earth asteroids,
The Asteroid Bennu Has All the Building Blocks of Life
The asteroid Bennu contains all the materials needed for life. This backs up an old hypothesis that the building blocks of life came to Earth on an asteroid.
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.
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.
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,
Building blocks of life discovered on asteroid Bennu
The building blocks for organic matter have been discovered on the asteroid Bennu, as deatiled in a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research gives new insight into how life originated on Earth and where we might find it elsewhere in the universe.
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?”
Asteroid Bennu reveals life's building blocks from space
In the samples from the asteroid Bennu, scientists discovered numerous organic compounds, including key amino acids, as well as DNA and RNA components. This finding suggests that the chemical building blocks of life might have been commonly present in the early solar system.
An Asteroid Sample Just Changed What We Know About Life in Our Solar System
The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023, and these studies show that it contains amino ...
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 ...
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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 ...
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, ...