NASA scientists found amino acids, key minerals, and nucleobases for DNA in samples from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission. It's a win for alien life.
NASA OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return team has revealed exciting evidence of the precursors of life in the pieces of space rock Bennu.
Samples returned from an asteroid contain a surprising abundance of the basic ingredients of life. They were discovered to be rich in carbon, nitrogen and ammonia, with over 30 kinds of amino acids and the five nucleobases found in RNA and DNA. 1 The asteroid, Bennu, was targeted by a Nasa mission that returned a capsule to Earth in September 2023.
Analysis of debris from the nearly 5 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu suggests the building blocks of DNA and RNA were present in the early days of our solar system.
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.
NASA's latest asteroid sample from Bennu reveals amino acids and nucleobases, essential for life, sparking questions about extraterrestrial existence.
The discovery is a capstone achievement for NASA, which went to great lengths to secure and deliver asteroid samples from asteroid Bennu in 2020.
Precise curation was necessary to discover that the Bennu asteroid sample contains building blocks of life on Earth.Long before a NASA spacecraft
Rock and dust samples from the Bennu asteroid contain molecules that are the "key to life" on Earth, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.
Scientists have discovered numerous organic compounds in samples from the asteroid Bennu, including key amino acids and the building blocks of DNA and RNA. This discovery suggests that the components necessary for life may have been commonly present in the early Solar System,
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.