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.

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

The Bennu discovery helps to illuminate how, early in the Solar System’s history, asteroids and other planetary building blocks were not just “lumps of stone and ice, but active ‘living’ objects”, says Yasuhito Sekine, a planetary scientist at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo who wrote a News & Views article accompanying the Nature paper.

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,

NASA scientists discovered a plethora of precursors to life on the asteroid Bennu, demonstrating the importance of Earthbound sample-return missions.

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.

The DNA ingredients discovered on the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission suggest that life-building blocks exist beyond Earth.

Samples from asteroid Bennu have delivered insights into the origins of Earth’s water and the organic molecules that may have seeded life.

Japanese scientists detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back 121.6 grams of asteroid Bennu,

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending towards asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona Scientists studying the sample collected in 2023 from asteroid Bennu have announced a dramatic finding: they have identified the key building blocks of life within the sample.

Samples contain all five nucleobases of DNA and RNA, supporting theory that asteroids may have seeded Earth with life's essential ingredients.