NASA scientists have begun analyzing a sample from asteroid Bennu, revealing complex organic molecules. The asteroid returned to Earth in Utah's west desert in September 2023.

A sample from a primitive asteroid that was parachuted into Utah's West Desert in 2023 revealed the building blocks of life, scientists announced.

Osiris-Rex launched in September 2016 and reached Bennu in 2018, then spent nearly two years orbiting the asteroid before venturing close enough to sink its robot arm into the loose surface on Oct ...

And indeed, in a separate analysis of the Bennu sample, other colleagues on the OSIRIS-REx mission identified a wide variety ...

NASA said the spacecraft successfully collected a sample of rocks and dust from the asteroid’s surface in 2020, before ...

But then the team split over which landing site offered the best ... No expense was spared in transporting the precious asteroid cargo to Houston. At the Utah Test and Training Range, workers prepare ...

An Asteroid Sample Just Changed What We Know About Life in Our ... a 4.3-ounce Bennu sample—perfectly preserved within OSIRIS-REx’s nitrogen-filled glovebox—crash-landed in the Utah desert.

NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams (4 ounces) of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off ...

Historic asteroid sample reveals the ‘building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin,’ scientists say Ashley Strickland, CNN January 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday ...

In September 2023, a capsule containing the pristine sample from Bennu returned to Earth, landing in the Utah desert in the United States. Keegan Barber/NASA Ongoing investigations ...

The sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer.