New analysis of asteroid dust reveals evidence of salty water in the early solar system
In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-meter-wide asteroid 320 million kilometers from Earth.
PBS2d
The Bennu asteroid reveals clues to how the building blocks of life on Earth may have been seeded
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu and scientists got to dive into a tale ...
New Atlas3d
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Asteroid 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 ...
Bennu Asteroid Reveals Its Contents To Scientists − And Clues To How The Building Blocks Of Life On Earth May Have Been Seeded
A bright fireball streaked across the sky above mountains, glaciers and spruce forest near the town of Revelstoke in British ...
KSL5d
'Unanticipated discovery': NASA scientists detail findings from asteroid that landed in Utah
Samples from the asteroid Bennu, which landed in Utah's west desert in September 2023, could suggest rocks carrying an ...
Salty, water-soaked asteroid reveals pathway to life’s origins
Researchers offer their most comprehensive assessment to date of the history of water and organic compounds in a sample ...
Smithsonian Magazine5d
Scientists Discover Traces of Salt Water and Building Blocks of Life in NASA’s Samples From the Asteroid Bennu
Two new papers describe hints to a brine-filled environment on the 4.5-billion-year-old space rock and the presence of amino ...
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 ...
Asteroid Bennu contains the 'seeds of life,' OSIRIS-REx samples reveal
Scientists have found all five nucelobases alongisde minerals essential for life as we know it on the potentially hazardous ...