In 2018, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission reached asteroid 101955 Bennu. Two years later, the spacecraft snagged a sample of its surface, which has since been returned to Earth. Now, astronomers are ...

Dust and rocks from Bennu contained all five nucleobases—molecules that make up DNA and RNA—and 14 of the 20 amino acids in proteins. These organic molecules had been found in other asteroids. But ...

This image, taken by NASA's Osiris-Rex probe in December 2018, shows the asteroid Bennu. Scientists have identified 14 of the 20 amino acids used by terrestrial life, as well as the five nucleic acid ...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) traveled 3.6 ...

NASA's watchful eye on the skies has recently spotted asteroid Bennu, a celestial body with a slim chance of impacting Earth. According to a study published in Science Advances, Bennu's odds of ...

WASHINGTON, USA – The rocky object called Bennu is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, currently making its closest approach to Earth every six years at about 186,000 miles (299,000 km) away ...

The 120 g of material came from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu ... Nucleobases have also been identified in the Bennu sample, but although chains of nucleobases are the molecular skeleton of RNA ...

If the near-Earth asteroid Bennu were to collide with Earth in the future, the space rock could cause substantial global damage, even though it’s a fraction of the size of the asteroid that ...

as well as all five nucleobases that life on Earth uses to store and transmit genetic instructions in DNA and RNA. “Asteroids provide a time capsule into our home planet’s history, and Bennu ...

Although the chances of impact are slim, Bennu is still one of the most potentially hazardous known asteroids in our solar system, and we need to be prepared for what could come. A first-of-its ...

Bennu has a diameter of roughly 500 meters (1,640 feet) and has a 1 in 2,700 chance of hitting our planet in September 2182. Bennu is not on the scale of the Chicxulub impactor – which hit the ...

The modest container was holding samples collected from Bennu, a diamond-shaped asteroid billions of miles away, and had been traveling through the dark corridors of space for years. After it ...