Samples contain all five nucleobases of DNA and RNA, supporting theory that asteroids may have seeded Earth with life's essential ingredients.

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

Scientists studying samples that NASA collected from the asteroid Bennu found a wide assortment of organic molecules that shed light on how life arose.

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

Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best evidence to date that such space rocks may have seeded early Earth with the raw ingredients that fostered the emergence of living organisms.

The building blocks of DNA have been found in samples returned to Earth from an asteroid, suggesting life rained down from space and could have formed elsewhere...

Samples of asteroid Bennu contain molecules that suggest the "conditions necessary for life" were widespread across the early solar system, according to NASA.

Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried over thousands of years and life’s basic ingredients were widespread.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission successfully returned samples from asteroid Bennu, revealing 14 of the 20 essential amino acids for life on Earth, along wit

Studies of asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life.

The pristine nature of the Bennu samples is crucial. Daniel Glavin of NASA noted, “The clues we’re finding are incredibly fragile and could never survive Earth’s contamination.” This ensures that the organic molecules detected are genuinely extraterrestrial, not contaminants from Earth.