NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) mission has detected amino acids in the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space, ...

Magnesium-sodium phosphate found in NASA's OSIRIS-Rex asteroid sample suggests Bennu, seen above, could have originated from an ancient, primitive ocean world. Credit: NASA What the team found was ...

This statement might sound like a line from a sci-fi movie, but what if life on Earth didn’t start here at all? For decades, ...

Tim McCoy, right, and Cari Corrigan, meteorite researchers at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, look at images of asteroid Bennu samples taken by a scanning electron microscope.

An artist's rendering depicts the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft contacting the asteroid Bennu with the Touch-and-Go Sample Arm Mechanism. In samples taken from a distant asteroid, scientists have discovered a ...

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 ...

Scientists have identified life’s key ingredients and signs of the stew needed to mix them in asteroid samples brought back to Earth by a University of Arizona-led space mission. The rocks and dust ...

A startling discovery has reignited one of science’s oldest questions: where did life truly begin? Researchers analyzing a ...

The rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu hold amino acids, ammonia and other molecules essential to life on Earth, NASA reported Wednesday. The findings suggest the conditions necessary for ...

Bits of rock and dust brought back from the distant asteroid Bennu contain some of the chemical building blocks of life, NASA announced Wednesday, a discovery that strengthens the theory that ...

Scientists poring over a sample brought back from the asteroid Bennu have detected amino acids and complex mineral compounds, some of which have never been found in space rocks. A team at the ...