Samples contain all five nucleobases of DNA and RNA, supporting theory that asteroids may have seeded Earth with life's essential ingredients.
Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried over thousands of years and life’s basic ingredients were widespread.
Two science teams pored over samples from the B-type asteroid Bennu, finding chemicals linked to the beginnings of life and brine that is of interest for future space exploration.
Japanese collaborators detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples ... 121.6 grams of sample from asteroid (101955) Bennu in September 2023—the largest ...
The study of asteroid samples is a highly lucrative area of research and one of the best ways to determine how the Solar System came to be. Given that asteroids are leftover material from the formation of the Solar System,
Analyzing a sample from an asteroid named Bennu reveals the chemicals necessary to form DNA and RNA.
Rock and dust samples brought back from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu contain organic matter, including amino acids and all five DNA and RNA bases, as well as salts that formed early in the history of Bennu's parent body.
Joint Press Release by Hokkaido University, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Kyushu University, Tohoku University, and
Japanese collaborators detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx
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.
Studies of asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life.