NASA's recent findings from asteroid samples reveal that the materials fetched from Bennu hold evidence of primordial building blocks for life, including amino acids and salt minerals. This suggests that asteroids may have played a significant role in seeding life on Earth. The Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned a substantial 122 grams of samples, enabling researchers to study these materials in detail. The combination of these life-essential ingredients with brine environments forms a plausible pathway to life's origins, according to scientists involved in the research.
Combining the ingredients of life with an environment of sodium-rich salt water, or brines, that’s really the pathway to life, said McCoy, the National Museum of Natural History’s curator.
NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023.
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water.
This discovery was only possible by analyzing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth.
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