The building blocks for life, including salts, organic matter and amino acids have been found in samples returned to Earth from outer space.

Material retrieved from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows that all the basic building blocks of life were astonishingly widespread in the early solar system

With the OSIRIS-REx space probe, the NASA space agency succeeded in collecting some material from the surface of asteroid Bennu, which arrived on Earth in a small capsule in 2023. The analysis of the material by more than 40 scientific teams worldwide – including the team led by Prof.

When asteroids like Bennu hit the young Earth, they could have provided a complete package of complex molecules and the ingredients essential to life, such as water, phosphate and ammonia. Together, these components could have seeded Earth’s initially barren landscape to produce a habitable world.

Scientists found 11 minerals in Bennu samples, including calcite, halite, and sylvite, that form when water with dissolved salts evaporates over time, leaving solid crystals. Similar brines have been detected on Ceres and Enceladus.

Along with the major planets — Earth, Jupiter, and so forth — the Solar System is home to many small bodies including asteroids, comets, Kuiper Belt objects like Pluto, and their satellites. While the major planets follow predictable orbits around the ...

A Canadian man narrowly avoided being struck by a meteorite that crashed onto his front porch in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. The meteorite, dubbed the Charlottetown Meteorite ...

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

Meteorite Contains Evidence of Liquid Water on Mars 742 Million Years Ago Nov. 13, 2024 — An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space.

It took two years for NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past Earth, which was

FRANKFURT. It took two years for NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past

Patrick Gomez is an Executive Editor at Entertainment Weekly. Formerly at People magazine and The A.V. Club, the Critics Choice and Television Critics Association member has appeared on 'Today ...