CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In just a matter of months, for the first time, the U.S. will bring back a sample of the early solar system in the form of about half a pound of asteroid pieces. After sample ...

The Incredible Events That Will Shape Earth’s Distant Future ...

Dust from asteroid Bennu is revealing a surprising origin story for life’s building blocks. New research suggests some amino acids formed in frozen ice exposed to radiation, not warm liquid water as ...

When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back samples from asteroid 101955 Bennu, researchers found that they contained amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life. Amino acids are the molecules ...

Talk about a sugar rush! NASA may have just come a little closer to cracking one of science’s most enduring mysteries — how life on Earth got started. The space agency has reportedly discovered ...

Researchers discovered sugars essential for biology, including glucose, in the asteroid material for the first time. A strange, pliable substance nicknamed "space gum" was also found, which could have ...

Samples taken from the asteroid Bennu are continuing to shed light on the origins of the solar system. Scientists have been studying the samples since NASA's Osiris-REx spacecraft carried them back to ...

"Bennu is a time capsule of the material that was throughout the solar system." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Scientists ...

Since its discovery in 1999, the near-Earth asteroid Bennu has captivated scientists as a time capsule from the early solar system — and also as a key to possibly understanding the origins of life. To ...

SwRI scientists reviewed spectral data of sample material taken from near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu (pictured above) and compared them with spectral data of main belt asteroid Polana from the ...