NASA scientists found amino acids, key minerals, and nucleobases for DNA in samples from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission. It's a win for alien life.

The building blocks for life, including salts, organic matter and amino acids have been found in samples returned to Earth from outer space.

Scientists have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in the samples collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission from a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu.

Analysis of debris from the nearly 5 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu suggests the building blocks of DNA and RNA were present in the early days of our solar system.

Scientists have found all five nucelobases alongisde minerals essential for life as we know it on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu.

Samples of asteroid Bennu contain molecules that suggest the "conditions necessary for life" were widespread across the early solar system, according to NASA.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned triumphantly to Earth in 2023 after collecting 4.3 ounces (121.6 grams) of precious grains of dust and rock from the asteroid Bennu in 2020. While that sample return was an incredible feat of engineering,

Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best evidence to date that such space rocks may have seeded early Earth with the raw ingredients that fostered the emergence of living organisms.

The meteor fragments returned by OSIRIS-REx shed light on the entwined history of water and the chemical ingredients of life in the solar system.

When exposed to formaldehyde, which was also detected, ammonia can form amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. According to the study in Nature Astronom y, the team also found 14 of the 20 amino acids present in Earth-bound life in the Bennu sample. In addition, Bennu contains all five of the nucleotide bases present in DNA and RNA.

Studies of asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life.