The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned triumphantly to Earth in 2023 after collecting 4.3 ounces (121.6 grams) of precious grains of dust and rock from the asteroid Bennu in 2020. While that sample return was an incredible feat of engineering,

Scientists have found all five nucelobases alongisde minerals essential for life as we know it on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu.

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,

Early analysis of asteroid samples from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission show the residue of an icy brine, and a soup of amino acids.

YR4, which was recently spotted in the cosmos with a non-zero chance of hitting Earth in the coming years, may have caused some alarm.

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

The doorbell camera caught it all. A crew wheels the OSIRIS-Rex asteroid sample return capsule into a cleanroom on Sept. 24, 2023. Credit: NASA / Keegan Barber NASA's $800 million OSIRIS-Rex ...

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.

Bennu samples brought back by a University of Arizona-led space mission contain the key ingredients of life and signs of the stew needed to mix them.

The meteor fragments returned by OSIRIS-REx shed light on the entwined history of water and the chemical ingredients of life in the solar system.

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.