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A smooth start to life in orbit for Sentinel-2C
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By NASA
NASA Science Live: Asteroid Bennu Originated from World with Ingredients and Conditions for Life
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By NASA
In this video frame, Jason Dworkin holds up a vial that contains part of the sample from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission in 2023. Dworkin is the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.Credit: NASA/James Tralie Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life, as well as a history of saltwater that could have served as the “broth” for these compounds to interact and combine.
The findings do not show evidence for life itself, but they do suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were widespread across the early solar system, increasing the odds life could have formed on other planets and moons.
“NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission already is rewriting the textbook on what we understand about the beginnings of our solar system,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Asteroids provide a time capsule into our home planet’s history, and Bennu’s samples are pivotal in our understanding of what ingredients in our solar system existed before life started on Earth.”
In research papers published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, scientists from NASA and other institutions shared results of the first in-depth analyses of the minerals and molecules in the Bennu samples, which OSIRIS-REx delivered to Earth in 2023.
Detailed in the Nature Astronomy paper, among the most compelling detections were amino acids – 14 of the 20 that life on Earth uses to make proteins – and all five nucleobases that life on Earth uses to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex terrestrial biomolecules, such as DNA and RNA, including how to arrange amino acids into proteins.
Scientists also described exceptionally high abundances of ammonia in the Bennu samples. Ammonia is important to biology because it can react with formaldehyde, which also was detected in the samples, to form complex molecules, such as amino acids – given the right conditions. When amino acids link up into long chains, they make proteins, which go on to power nearly every biological function.
These building blocks for life detected in the Bennu samples have been found before in extraterrestrial rocks. However, identifying them in a pristine sample collected in space supports the idea that objects that formed far from the Sun could have been an important source of the raw precursor ingredients for life throughout the solar system.
“The clues we’re looking for are so minuscule and so easily destroyed or altered from exposure to Earth’s environment,” said Danny Glavin, a senior sample scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and co-lead author of the Nature Astronomy paper. “That’s why some of these new discoveries would not be possible without a sample-return mission, meticulous contamination-control measures, and careful curation and storage of this precious material from Bennu.”
While Glavin’s team analyzed the Bennu samples for hints of life-related compounds, their colleagues, led by Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, and Sara Russell, cosmic mineralogist at the Natural History Museum in London, looked for clues to the environment these molecules would have formed. Reporting in the journal Nature, scientists further describe evidence of an ancient environment well-suited to kickstart the chemistry of life.
Ranging from calcite to halite and sylvite, scientists identified traces of 11 minerals in the Bennu sample that form as water containing dissolved salts evaporates over long periods of time, leaving behind the salts as solid crystals.
Similar brines have been detected or suggested across the solar system, including at the dwarf planet Ceres and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Although scientists have previously detected several evaporites in meteorites that fall to Earth’s surface, they have never seen a complete set that preserves an evaporation process that could have lasted thousands of years or more. Some minerals found in Bennu, such as trona, were discovered for the first time in extraterrestrial samples.
“These papers really go hand in hand in trying to explain how life’s ingredients actually came together to make what we see on this aqueously altered asteroid,” said McCoy.
For all the answers the Bennu sample has provided, several questions remain. Many amino acids can be created in two mirror-image versions, like a pair of left and right hands. Life on Earth almost exclusively produces the left-handed variety, but the Bennu samples contain an equal mixture of both. This means that on early Earth, amino acids may have started out in an equal mixture, as well. The reason life “turned left” instead of right remains a mystery.
“OSIRIS-REx has been a highly successful mission,” said Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-lead author on the Nature Astronomy paper. “Data from OSIRIS-REx adds major brushstrokes to a picture of a solar system teeming with the potential for life. Why we, so far, only see life on Earth and not elsewhere, that’s the truly tantalizing question.”
NASA Goddard provided overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provided flight operations. NASA Goddard and KinetX Aerospace were responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx takes place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information on the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Rani Gran
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
301-286-2483
rani.c.gran@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jan 29, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) Asteroids Bennu Goddard Space Flight Center Science Mission Directorate
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By Space Force
Secretary Pete Hegseth was sworn in as the 29th Secretary of Defense.
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By NASA
NASA astronaut Victor Glover tests collection methods for ISS External Microorganisms in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at Johnson Space Center.NASA Astronauts are scheduled to venture outside the International Space Station to collect microbiological samples during crew spacewalks for the ISS External Microorganisms experiment. This investigation focuses on sampling at sites near life support system vents to examine whether the spacecraft releases microorganisms, how many, and how far they may travel.
This experiment could help researchers understand whether and how these microorganisms survive and reproduce in the harsh space environment and how they may perform at planetary destinations such as the Moon and Mars. Extremophiles, or microorganisms that can survive harsh environments, are also of interest to industries on Earth such as pharmaceuticals and agriculture.
Spacecrafts and spacesuits are thoroughly sterilized before missions; however, humans carry their own microbiomes and continuously regenerate microbial communities. It’s important to understand and address how well current designs and processes prevent or limit the spread of human contamination. The data could help determine whether changes are needed to crewed spacecraft, including spacesuits, that are used to explore destinations where life may exist now or in the past.
Learn more about how researchers monitor microbes on the space station.
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By NASA
The ARCSTONE observatory is shown in low Earth orbit with the spectrometer viewing the Sun and Moon. The spacecraft rotates in order to view the Moon or the Sun. One of the most challenging tasks in remote sensing from space is achieving required instrument calibration accuracy on-orbit. The Moon is considered to be an excellent exoatmospheric calibration source. However, the current accuracy of the Moon as an absolute reference is limited to 5 – 10%, and this level of accuracy is inadequate to meet the challenging objective of Earth Science observations. ARCSTONE is a mission concept that provides a solution to this challenge. An orbiting spectrometer flying on a small satellite in low Earth orbit will provide lunar spectral reflectance with accuracy sufficient to establish an SI-traceable absolute lunar calibration standard for past, current, and future Earth weather and climate sensors.
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