When NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission brought back samples from asteroid 101955 Bennu, researchers found that they contained amino ...

Penn State researchers think a key ingredient for life may have formed in deep freeze, not in a warm asteroid puddle. A space sample with a new twistScientists at Penn State; led by geoscientist ...

Dust from asteroid Bennu is revealing a surprising origin story for life’s building blocks. New research suggests some amino acids formed in frozen ice exposed to radiation, not warm liquid water as ...

Did the ingredients for life as we know it exist in the early solar system? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academ | Space ...

Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an ...

Tiny grains of dust from asteroid Bennu are reshaping how scientists think life’s ingredients formed in space.

A mosaic of Bennu created from observations made by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which was in close proximity to the asteroid for over two years. - NASA/Goddard ...

NASA has confirmed that dust from the ancient asteroid Bennu contains tryptophan, an amino acid tied both to human mood and to the chemistry that makes life possible. The finding folds a familiar ...

A new study offers a look at how the building blocks of life might ...

Samples brought back to Earth from asteroid "Bennu" in 2023 have been found to contain crucial building blocks for life—including amino acids and all five DNA and RNA nucleobases. The findings, ...

This figure illustrates key molecules and minerals discovered in samples of near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu, which were delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in September 2023. Bennu is a ...

Tryptophan, the essential amino acid behind the Thanksgiving myth that eating turkey can make you sleepy, has been found to exist on Bennu, a small asteroid that swings by our planet about every six ...