The rocky object called Bennu is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, currently making its closest approach to Earth every ...

The Bennu samples contain 14 of the 20 amino acids that are essential for life on Earth to build proteins. Also found were ...

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

including some never before seen in asteroid samples. “This is all very exciting because it suggests that asteroids like Bennu once acted like giant chemical factories in space and could have ...

The vast majority can be found in the asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between ... Originally named 1999 RQ36, it was renamed in 2013. Bennu is an ancient Egyptian deity linked with the Sun ...

Researchers have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in unprecedented samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid ... like Bennu once acted like giant chemical factories ...

Scientists found that asteroid Bennu contained a set of salty mineral deposits that formed in an exact sequence when a brine evaporated, leaving clues about the type of water that flowed billions of ...

But a pinch of grit from a distant asteroid collected ... In that time, chemical reactions with Earth’s atmosphere can alter meteorites even more. By traveling to Bennu, NASA researchers ...

Rock samples from the asteroid Bennu ... a brine-like environment on Bennu's parent asteroid. However, as they explain in an article published in Nature, the chemical profile differs from ...

New research backs up the old hypothesis that the key ingredients for life may have come to Earth on an asteroid ... like Bennu are essentially time capsules, revealing the chemical makeup of ...