The origins of life are becoming clearer

Samples from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, which were recently collected and analyzed by NASA, contain a wide assortment of organic molecules – including many of the crucial building blocks of life.

And if your first thought was “aliens!” a) you’re not alone and b) yes, aliens – but probably not the ones you’re thinking of. The analysis, revealed yesterday in two papers published in Nature, provides the strongest evidence yet that asteroids from outer space first planted the seeds of life on Earth.

A deeper dive: In 2023, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned four ounces of dust and pebbles from Bennu, representing the biggest-ever haul from the cosmos outside of the Moon. After analyzing the samples, research teams discovered ~16,000 different kinds of organic molecules are present on Bennu.

• Most remarkably, researchers found all five nucleobases that make up the DNA and RNA used by all known living things, as well as the presence of 14 amino acids used by cells to make proteins.

Bennu is just the start

The studies’ findings imply that the conditions required for making the building blocks of life likely could have been replicated across much of the early Solar System.

• And while the researchers don’t anticipate finding any evidence of full-blown life on Bennu, since it wasn’t subject to the right conditions for long enough, they say there are several targets even better-suited to develop life.
• These include the dwarf planet Ceres, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and Jupiter’s moon Europa – the latter of which will receive a recently launched NASA probe in 2030.

🪐 Mars also represents a main research target. NASA’s Perseverance rover has core samples awaiting pickup on the Red Planet, but their delivery is on hold while the space agency studies the quickest and cheapest way to retrieve them.