New analysis of asteroid dust reveals evidence of salty water in the early solar system
In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-meter-wide asteroid 320 ...
Interesting Engineering on MSN7d
Asteroid Bennu holds secrets of water evaporated billions of years ago, study shocks
That’s why NASA launched a mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2016. In 2020, the OSIRIS-REx mission made history by ...
Near-Earth asteroid Bennu could hit Earth in 157 years and set off a global ‘impact winter,’ study says
Near-Earth asteroid Bennu has a slim chance of colliding with Earth in 2182. If it does, the impact could trigger a global ...
The Weather Network on MSN2d
Surprisingly salty asteroid Bennu contains the building blocks of life
The Bennu samples contain 14 of the 20 amino acids that are essential for life on Earth to build proteins. Also found were ...
Smithsonian Magazine on MSN7d
Scientists Discover Traces of Salt Water and Building Blocks of Life in NASA’s Samples From the Asteroid Bennu
Two new papers describe hints to a brine-filled environment on the 4.5-billion-year-old space rock and the presence of amino ...
New Atlas6d
Asteroid Bennu came from a distant, lost world of salty ponds
Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried ...
Astronomy1d
Scientists find life’s ‘building blocks’ in asteroid Bennu samples
The meteor fragments returned by OSIRIS-REx shed light on the entwined history of water and the chemical ingredients of life ...
ZME Science7d
Ancient Water, Alien Salts, and Life’s Building Blocks Were All Found in Bennu Asteroid
This photo of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 Polycam images collected on Dec. 2, 2024, by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. NASA A ...
Dust from asteroid Bennu suggests solar system's potential for life was widespread
It took two years for NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it ...
Scientists find a 'next step on a pathway to life' in space
Samples of organic matter returned from the asteroid Bennu support the theory that asteroids could have brought the building ...
Asteroid Bennu Samples Contain Building Blocks of Life
Samples of Bennu were brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2023. Now, a pair of newly published papers ...
Popular Science8d
Scientists find traces of life’s building blocks in historic asteroid samples
Related: This is what’s inside NASA’s previously stuck asteroid sampler] The presence of these compounds therefore implies the presence of liquid water at some point in Bennu’s history—or ...