Earth’s origin story has always had missing pages, from the chemistry of its first crust to the ingredients that seeded life.

A sleep-inducing molecule humans use to make proteins was found, along with other amino acids, on an asteroid named Bennu.

LifeTracer is not a universal life detector. Rather, it provides a foundation for interpreting complex organic mixtures. The Bennu findings remind us that life-friendly chemistry may be widespread ...

The nitrogen in the gum was found to be in nitrogen heterocycles, which are the building blocks of nucleobases in DNA and RNA ...

Bennu samples reveal biological sugars, a strange, gum-like material, and ancient stardust that shed light on the early solar ...

Asteroid Bennu, a dark rubble pile that crosses Earth’s orbit every few years, is turning out to be a kind of cosmic pantry ...

What is “gum”? Most people have probably never considered this question, and might answer something like a chewy material you ...

Several sugars have been found on a sample of the asteroid Bennu, which may provide scientists with clues about our early ...

Scientists discovered ribose — in addition to “all five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA” — on asteroid Bennu, ...

Some Texans landed among the 600 featured in the 2026 30 Under 30 class. One of those was Austinite Alexia Leclercq, an ...

A visit to an asteroid is revealing the origins of life in our solar system. In 2023, the OSIRIS-REx mission brough samples ...

Three more papers on the samples brought back from asteroid Bennu reveal the place contains the building blocks of DNA and ...