NASA's Bennu asteroid sample reveals life's ingredients in early solar system

LOS ANGELES -- Studies of the samples from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA's spacecraft have revealed that the early solar system had widespread conditions and ingredients for life, NASA said on Wednesday.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, the first US mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, returned Bennu asteroid samples to Earth on Sept 24, 2023.

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.

The samples revealed molecules that 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, according to NASA.

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, according to NASA.

"NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission already is rewriting the textbook on what we understand about the beginnings of our solar system," said Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"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," Fox said.