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.

Two new papers describe hints to a brine-filled environment on the 4.5-billion-year-old space rock and the presence of amino acids, offering clues to how early Earth got its ingredients for life

Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best evidence to date that such space rocks may have seeded early Earth with the raw ingredients that fostered the emergence of living organisms.

Scientists studying samples that NASA collected from the asteroid Bennu found a wide assortment of organic molecules that shed light on how life arose.

Molecules friendly to life have been found in samples of the asteroid Bennu, which NASA collected with a robotic probe five years ago.

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 Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History discovered a salty residue left over from an ancient brine.

A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world.

Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.

Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that,