NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returned samples from asteroid Bennu, revealing significant findings about the origins of life. Two recent papers detail the discovery of organic compounds and nucleobases, fundamental to DNA and RNA, in the samples collected. Traces of brine indicate that salty water rich in potential life-sustaining molecules once existed on Bennu, which was akin to early Earth's watery environment. These revelations support the hypothesis that asteroids were crucial in delivering the essential ingredients for life to our planet billions of years ago.
The findings suggest either that the chemistry emerged de novo on both the asteroid and on Earth, or that other, similar asteroids may have brought us the raw ingredients of life when they bombarded our planet billions of years ago.
Samples of Bennu were brought back to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2023. Now, a pair of newly published papers reveal that the samples contain precursors to life.
One of the papers found traces of brine that were likely left behind when salty water, which could have given rise to organic compounds, evaporated.
The other paper... reported the discovery of all five nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA—adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil.
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