Historic asteroid samples collected by OSIRIS-REx contain ingredients crucial for life

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Now, new research has revealed the asteroid contains many of the chemical building blocks of life, such as amino acids and components found in DNA, said Dr. Daniel P. Glavin, senior scientist for samples return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This is all very exciting because it suggests that asteroids like Bennu once acted like giant chemical factories in space and could have also delivered the raw ingredients for life to Earth and other bodies in our solar system,” said Glavin, lead author of a study on the samples published Wednesday in the journal Nature Astronomy. James Di Loreto/Smithsonian Delivering the potential for life The presence of water, minerals, salts and amino acids suggests it was possible for the building blocks of life to come together in interesting ways on Bennu, but Glavin said more research is required to determine how organic compounds formed and evolved on the space rock. Rob Wardell/Tim Gooding/Tim McCoy/Smithsonian The combination of material found in the samples suggests chemical building blocks of life were widespread throughout the solar system, providing strong evidence that the asteroids bombarding early Earth may have delivered water and organic material to its surface, Glavin noted.