NASA scientists found amino acids, key minerals, and nucleobases for DNA in samples from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission. It's a win for alien life.

Samples returned from an asteroid contain a surprising abundance of the basic ingredients of life. They were discovered to be rich in carbon, nitrogen and ammonia, with over 30 kinds of amino acids and the five nucleobases found in RNA and DNA. 1 The asteroid, Bennu, was targeted by a Nasa mission that returned a capsule to Earth in September 2023.

Analysis of debris from the nearly 5 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu suggests the building blocks of DNA and RNA were present in the early days of our solar system.

All forms of Earth life have specific chemicals in their makeup, such as amino acids and sugars. Scientists have known that asteroids hold molecules believed to be the precursors to these chemicals. By studying the Bennu samples, they hope to gain more insight into how these ingredients could have evolved.

There are 20 amino acids that create the proteins required for life on our planet — and scientists have now found exactly 14 of them on an asteroid millions of miles away. The asteroid in question, named Bennu, was the focus of a very dreamy NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx that launched in 2016.

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,

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

Rock and dust samples from the Bennu asteroid contain molecules that are the "key to life" on Earth, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.

NASA's latest asteroid sample from Bennu reveals amino acids and nucleobases, essential for life, sparking questions about extraterrestrial existence.

The building blocks for organic matter have been discovered on the asteroid Bennu, as deatiled in a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research gives new insight into how life originated on Earth and where we might find it elsewhere in the universe.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe dropped off samples of asteroid Bennu in 2023, and now those samples have been analyzed by researchers for their contents.