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.

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

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,

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

Scientists have discovered numerous organic compounds in samples from the asteroid Bennu, including key amino acids and the building blocks of DNA and RNA. This discovery suggests that the components necessary for life may have been commonly present in the early Solar System,