Jan 29, 2025 · Life on Earth almost exclusively produces the left-handed variety, but the Bennu samples contain an equal mixture of both. This means that on early Earth, amino acids may have started out in an equal mixture, as well. The reason life “turned left” instead of right remains a …

Oct 16, 2020 · Bennu is a primordial artifact preserved in the vacuum of space, orbiting among planets and moons and asteroids and comets. Because it is so old, Bennu could be made of material containing molecules that were present when life first formed on Earth.

Feb 3, 2025 · The origin of life is one of the deepest mysteries in science, but the clues to solving it have been buried by plate tectonics, the water cycle, and even life itself. For answers, scientists are looking beyond Earth to primitive asteroids like Bennu, the target of NASA’s daring OSIRIS-REx sample return mission.

Feb 1, 2025 · Nearly 60 years later, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu, similar to the one that rained rocks over Revelstoke. Our research team has...

Jan 29, 2025 · 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.

Jan 29, 2025 · Samples from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission show the asteroid Bennu had organic molecules and minerals and possibly salty water and other life ingredients.

Jan 29, 2025 · Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid that has a 1-in-2,700 chance of striking Earth in the year 2182 — the highest odds of any known space object. But scientists are more interested in...

Jan 29, 2025 · 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...

Jan 29, 2025 · A new analysis of samples from the asteroid Bennu, NASA’s first asteroid sample captured in space and delivered to Earth, reveals that evaporated water left a briny broth where salts and minerals allowed the elemental ingredients of life to intermingle and create more complex structures. The discovery suggests that extraterrestrial brines provided a crucial setting for the development of ...

Dec 20, 2024 · Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid that is about one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide at its equator. An ancient relic of our solar system’s early days, asteroid Bennu has seen more than 4.5 billion years of history.