Samples contain all five nucleobases of DNA and RNA, supporting theory that asteroids may have seeded Earth with life's essential ingredients.

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.

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

Scientists studying samples that NASA collected from the asteroid Bennu found a wide assortment of organic molecules that shed light on how life arose.

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 building blocks of DNA have been found in samples returned to Earth from an asteroid, suggesting life rained down from space and could have formed elsewhere...

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

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

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.