The Building Blocks for Life Found in Asteroid Bennu Samples

[Binary_Bark]

The study of asteroid samples is a highly lucrative area of research and one of the best ways to determine how the Solar System came to be. Given that asteroids are leftover material from the formation of the Solar System, they are likely to contain vital clues about how several key processes took place. This includes how water, organic molecules, and the building blocks of life were distributed throughout the Solar System billions of years ago. For this reason, space agencies have attached a high importance to the retrieval of asteroid samples that are returned to Earth for analysis.

Linky Thing

 

[Bliksis]

Headline is a bit sensational, although not technically false.

 

[Binary_Bark]

Asteroid Bennu came from a distant, lost world of salty ponds​

Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried over thousands of years and life’s basic ingredients were widespread.

The discovery comes from new analysis of data gathered during NASA’s ambitious OSIRIS-REx mission. This saw a probe rendezvous with the 490-meter-wide (1,610-ft) space rock in 2018, swooping low enough to scoop up a 250-g (9-oz) sample of rock and soil from its surface. The sample was then flown back to Earth, touching down in Utah in 2023 – and scientists have been studying it intently ever since.

Asteroid Bennu came from a distant, lost world of salty ponds

Asteroid Bennu seems to have come from a long-lost world on the fringes of the solar system, where saltwater pooled and dried over thousands of years and life’s basic ingredients were widespread.

newatlas.com

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

what if everything they tell us about how life is formed and created is false?
what if the universe is full of life, and we would never identify it as such,

I sometimes think we have a very narrow minded view of life and what came from where.

 

[Binary_Bark]

Scientists Make a Game-Changing Find in the Bennu Asteroid​

In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission delivered samples of the 4.6-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu to Earth. Upon examining them, scientists discovered that the asteroid - which existed when the Solar System was in the earliest phase of its formation - contained amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it. These acids are responsible for the production of proteins and peptides found in DNA. Their retrieval from space confirmed what scientists had theorized decades ago: that the ingredients for life came from space.

Scientists Make a Game-Changing Find in the Bennu Asteroid

According to the researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, some of the amino acids found in the asteroid Bennu likely formed in a different way than was previously thought, effectively challenging what we thought we knew about the origins of life.

www.universetoday.com