https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-asteroid-bennu-sample-reveals-mix-of-lifes-ingredients/ NASA Logo * Explore Search [ ] NASA Logo * News & Events News & Events + All NASA News + Video Series on NASA+ + Podcasts + Blogs + Newsletters + Social Media + Media Resources + Events + Upcoming Launches & Landings + Virtual Guest Program * Multimedia Multimedia + NASA+ + Images + NASA Live + NASA Apps + Podcasts + Image of the Day + e-Books + Sounds and Ringtones + Interactives + STEM Multimedia * NASA+ Search [ ] Suggested Searches * Climate Change * Artemis * Expedition 64 * Mars perseverance * SpaceX Crew-2 * International Space Station * View All Topics A-Z * Home * Missions * Humans in Space * Earth & Climate * The Solar System * The Universe * Science * Aeronautics * Technology * Learning Resources * About NASA * Espanol ----------------------------------------------------------------- * News & Events * Multimedia * NASA+ Featured Hubble Spots a Supernova 2 min read Hubble Spots a Supernova article3 days ago A topographic map of Rancho Palos Verdes, CA (Sept. 18-Oct. 17, 2024) shows landslide velocity in cm/week, with red areas moving fastest (>=10 cm/week). The slide extends beyond the 2007 boundary toward Abalone Cove. An arrow marks the landslide direction southward. 3 min read NASA Radar Imagery Reveals Details About Los Angeles-Area Landslides article3 days ago What's Up: February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA 4 min read What's Up: February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA article3 days ago Back --------------------------------------------------------------------- Missions * Search All NASA Missions * A to Z List of Missions * Upcoming Launches and Landings * Spaceships and Rockets * Communicating with Missions * Artemis * James Webb Space Telescope * Hubble Space Telescope * International Space Station * OSIRIS-Rex Humans in Space * Why Go to Space * Astronauts * Commercial Space * Destinations * Spaceships and Rockets * Living in Space Earth & Climate * Explore Earth Science * Climate Change * Earth, Our Planet * Earth Science in Action * Earth Multimedia * Earth Data * Earth Science Researchers The Solar System * The Sun * Mercury * Venus * Earth * The Moon * Mars * Jupiter * Saturn * Uranus * Neptune * Pluto & Dwarf Planets * Asteroids, Comets & Meteors * The Kuiper Belt * The Oort Cloud * Skywatching The Universe * Exoplanets * The Search for Life in the Universe * Stars * Galaxies * Black Holes * The Big Bang * Dark Energy & Dark Matter Science * Earth Science * Planetary Science * Astrophysics & Space Science * The Sun & Heliophysics * Biological & Physical Sciences * Lunar Science * Citizen Science * Astromaterials * Aeronautics Research * Human Space Travel Research Aeronautics * Science in the Air * NASA Aircraft * Flight Innovation * Supersonic Flight * Air Traffic Solutions * Green Aviation Tech * Drones & You Technology * Technology Transfer & Spinoffs * Space Travel Technology * Technology Living in Space * Manufacturing and Materials * Robotics * Science Instruments * Computing Learning Resources * For Kids and Students * For Educators * For Colleges and Universities * For Professionals * Science for Everyone * Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers * STEM Engagement at NASA About NASA * NASA's Impacts * Centers and Facilities * Directorates * Organizations * People of NASA * Careers * Internships * Our History * Doing Business with NASA * Get Involved * Contact NASA en Espanol * Ciencia * Aeronautica * Ciencias Terrestres * Sistema Solar * Universo News & Events * All NASA News * Video Series on NASA+ * Podcasts * Blogs * Newsletters * Social Media * Media Resources * Events * Upcoming Launches & Landings * Virtual Guest Program Multimedia * NASA+ * Images * NASA Live * NASA Apps * Podcasts * Image of the Day * e-Books * Sounds and Ringtones * Interactives * STEM Multimedia Featured [coverphoto2] 5 min read How to Fly NASA's Orion Spacecraft article 6 days ago NASA's SPHEREx observatory undergoes testing 5 min read 6 Things to Know About SPHEREx, NASA's Newest Space Telescope article 3 days ago Hubble Spots a Supernova 2 min read Hubble Spots a Supernova article 3 days ago Highlights An astronaut wearing a gray shirt and gloves handles a frosty, smoke-emitting component inside the International Space Station. 2 min read Station Science Top News: Jan. 31, 2025 article 54 mins ago Composite image of Earth and the Moon as seen by the Galileo spacecraft 3 min read CDLC article 6 hours ago VIPER Announcement for Partnership Proposals 3 min read VIPER Announcement for Partnership Proposals article 5 days ago Highlights A topographic map of Rancho Palos Verdes, CA (Sept. 18-Oct. 17, 2024) shows landslide velocity in cm/week, with red areas moving fastest (>=10 cm/week). The slide extends beyond the 2007 boundary toward Abalone Cove. 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The slide extends beyond the 2007 boundary toward Abalone Cove. An arrow marks the landslide direction southward. 3 min read NASA Radar Imagery Reveals Details About Los Angeles-Area Landslides article 3 days ago Highlights [acd24-0180-005] 4 min read NASA Flight Tests Wildland Fire Tech Ahead of Demo article 3 days ago A rendering showing a front view of a single-aisle aircraft with eight electric engines under each wing flying across a blue sky. 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CEVIS provides aerobic and cardiovascular conditioning through recumbent (leaning back position) or upright cycling activities. 8 min read Preguntas frecuentes: La verdadera historia del cuidado de la salud de los astronautas en el espacio article 2 months ago View from outside a large run stall. The 100-foot-long X-59 sits in the run stall with the engine and the rest of the back of the aircraft sitting outside the run stall's open bay door. 4 min read El X-59 enciende su motor por primera vez rumbo al despegue article 3 months ago 6 min read NASA's Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals Mix of Life's Ingredients The headshot image of Jessica Taveau Jessica Taveau Jan 29, 2025 RELEASE25-013 NASA Headquarters Goddard Space Flight Center * * * * A scientist in a white coat, mask, hair net, and purple gloves holds up a clear vial with a black substance inside near the camera. In this video frame, Jason Dworkin holds up a vial that contains part of the sample from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security - Regolith Explorer) mission in 2023. Dworkin is the mission's project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA/James Tralie Lee esta nota de prensa en espanol aqui. 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, on our planet, are key to life, as well as a history of saltwater that could have served as the "broth" for these compounds to interact and combine. The findings do not show evidence for life itself, but they do suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were widespread across the early solar system, increasing the odds life could have formed on other planets and moons. "NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission already is rewriting the textbook on what we understand about the beginnings of our solar system," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Asteroids provide a time capsule into our home planet's history, and Bennu's samples are pivotal in our understanding of what ingredients in our solar system existed before life started on Earth." In research papers published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, scientists from NASA and other institutions shared results of the first in-depth analyses of the minerals and molecules in the Bennu samples, which OSIRIS-REx delivered to Earth in 2023. Detailed in the Nature Astronomy paper, among the most compelling detections were amino acids - 14 of the 20 that life on Earth uses to make proteins - and all five nucleobases that life on Earth uses to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex terrestrial biomolecules, such as DNA and RNA, including how to arrange amino acids into proteins. Scientists also described exceptionally high abundances of ammonia in the Bennu samples. Ammonia is important to biology because it can react with formaldehyde, which also was detected in the samples, to form complex molecules, such as amino acids - given the right conditions. When amino acids link up into long chains, they make proteins, which go on to power nearly every biological function. These building blocks for life detected in the Bennu samples have been found before in extraterrestrial rocks. However, identifying them in a pristine sample collected in space supports the idea that objects that formed far from the Sun could have been an important source of the raw precursor ingredients for life throughout the solar system. "The clues we're looking for are so minuscule and so easily destroyed or altered from exposure to Earth's environment," said Danny Glavin, a senior sample scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and co-lead author of the Nature Astronomy paper . "That's why some of these new discoveries would not be possible without a sample-return mission, meticulous contamination-control measures, and careful curation and storage of this precious material from Bennu." While Glavin's team analyzed the Bennu samples for hints of life-related compounds, their colleagues, led by Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, and Sara Russell, cosmic mineralogist at the Natural History Museum in London, looked for clues to the environment these molecules would have formed. Reporting in the journal Nature, scientists further describe evidence of an ancient environment well-suited to kickstart the chemistry of life. Ranging from calcite to halite and sylvite, scientists identified traces of 11 minerals in the Bennu sample that form as water containing dissolved salts evaporates over long periods of time, leaving behind the salts as solid crystals. Similar brines have been detected or suggested across the solar system, including at the dwarf planet Ceres and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Although scientists have previously detected several evaporites in meteorites that fall to Earth's surface, they have never seen a complete set that preserves an evaporation process that could have lasted thousands of years or more. Some minerals found in Bennu, such as trona, were discovered for the first time in extraterrestrial samples. "These papers really go hand in hand in trying to explain how life's ingredients actually came together to make what we see on this aqueously altered asteroid," said McCoy. For all the answers the Bennu sample has provided, several questions remain. Many amino acids can be created in two mirror-image versions, like a pair of left and right hands. Life on Earth almost exclusively produces the left-handed variety, but the Bennu samples contain an equal mixture of both. This means that on early Earth, amino acids may have started out in an equal mixture, as well. The reason life "turned left" instead of right remains a mystery. "OSIRIS-REx has been a highly successful mission," said Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-lead author on the Nature Astronomy paper. "Data from OSIRIS-REx adds major brushstrokes to a picture of a solar system teeming with the potential for life. Why we, so far, only see life on Earth and not elsewhere, that's the truly tantalizing question." NASA Goddard provided overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission's science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provided flight operations. NASA Goddard and KinetX Aerospace were responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx takes place at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information on the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex Karen Fox / Molly Wasser Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov Rani Gran Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 301-286-2483 rani.c.gran@nasa.gov Share * * * * Details Last Updated Feb 03, 2025 Editor Jessica Taveau Location NASA Headquarters Related Terms * OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) * Asteroids * Astrobiology * Bennu * Goddard Space Flight Center * Johnson Space Center * Marshall Space Flight Center * Planetary Science * Science Mission Directorate NASA Logo National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery. * About NASA's Mission Join Us * Home * News & Events * Multimedia * NASA+ * Missions * Humans in Space * Earth & Climate * The Solar System * The Universe * Science * Aeronautics * Technology * Learning Resources * About NASA * NASA en Espanol Follow NASA * * * * * More NASA Social Accounts * NASA Newsletters * Sitemap * For Media * Privacy Policy * FOIA * No FEAR Act * Office of the IG * Budget & Annual Reports * Agency Financial Reports * Contact NASA * Accessibility * Page Last Updated: Feb 03, 2025 * Page Editor: Rob Garner * Responsible NASA Official: Abigail Bowman