‘Building blocks of life’ found on alien asteroid, scientists say

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Samples taken by Nasa from the asteroid Bennu have not only the ingredients required to life but also show the leftovers of an ancient water world, researchers said in new findings. NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after another space rock. “These processes probably occurred much earlier and were much more widespread than we had thought before.” NASA's Daniel Glavin said one of the biggest surprises was the relatively high abundance of nitrogen, including ammonia. While all of the organic molecules found in the Bennu samples have been identified before in meteorites, Glavin said the ones from Bennu are valid — “real extraterrestrial organic material formed in space and not a result of contamination from Earth.” Bennu — a rubble pile just one-third of a mile across — was originally part of a much larger asteroid that got clobbered by other space rocks.