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By NASA
Skywatching Skywatching Home What’s Up Eclipses Explore the Night Sky Night Sky Network More Tips and Guides FAQ A Month of Bright Planets
Venus blazes at its brightest for the year after sunset, then Mars and Jupiter to rule the night amid the menagerie of bright winter stars.
Skywatching Highlights
All Month – Planet Visibility:
Mercury: Pops up just above the horizon in late February, looking relatively bright as sunset fades Venus: Looking brilliant in the west after sunset all month Mars: Bright and amber-orange colored, high in the east each evening. It’s the last planet to set in the west a couple of hours before sunrise Jupiter: Find the giant planet high overhead in the evening, looking very bright Saturn: Somewhat faint, but visible low in the west for the first hour after sunset; increasingly lower as the month goes on Daily Highlights:
February 1 – Venus & Moon: The crescent Moon cozies up to brilliant Venus tonight in the west after sunset. Saturn hangs below them.
February 5 – Moon & Pleiades: Look for the Moon only a finger’s width west of the Pleiades at nightfall, then crossing in front of the star cluster before setting
February 6 – Moon & Jupiter: The Moon is high overhead at nightfall, forming a line with bright Jupiter and reddish star Aldebaran in Taurus
February 9 – Moon & Mars: Find the nearly full Moon in the east tonight after dark, about three finger widths below reddish Mars. Bright stars Pollux and Castor in Gemini are just to its north.
February 12 – Full Moon
Transcript
What’s Up for February? The Moon’s many engagements, what’s the right term for a planetary rendezvous, and the goddess of love draws near.
Moon & Planets
Starting with the Moon’s journey across the sky this month, you’ll find the slim crescent of Earth’s natural satellite cozied up to the planet Venus on the 1st. It then visits the Pleiades on the 5th, and hops over Jupiter on the 6th, looking increasingly fuller, before arriving right next to Mars on February 9th.
Sky chart showing Jupiter and Mars high overhead after nightfall in February 2025. Jupiter and Mars rule the sky on February nights. You’ll find them high overhead in the evening, together with the winter constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Gemini.
Appulses
Astronomers sometimes get picky about their terminology. For instance, the apparent close approaches of objects on the sky, like two planets, or the Moon and a planet, are commonly called “conjunctions,” and we often use that term in this video series.
However, most of the time, the technically correct term is an “appulse.” Conjunctions technically occur when two objects have the same right ascension, and they don’t have to appear close together in the sky. (Right ascension is a way of indicating where an object is along the sky from east to west, similar to how we measure longitude on Earth’s surface.)
Appulses are simply the times when two objects appear at their closest in the sky, regardless of whether they have to have the same “space coordinates.” The term comes from a Latin word meaning “brought near” or “driven toward.” And now that you know the distinction, you can choose to keep it casual or impress others with some next-level astronomy knowledge. Either way, it’s all about enjoying the view.
Venus Draws Near
February is a month for love, so what better time to spotlight Venus, which is associated with the Roman goddess of love? This month, Venus shines at its brightest for the year. It’ll remain dazzling through the start of March as it slowly descends from its late-January high point in the sky. By mid-March, it will disappear into the glare of sunset, only to reappear as a morning object in April.
Through a telescope, Venus becomes larger as it comes closer to Earth in its orbit. It also becomes a slimmer crescent. Nonetheless, this is when the planet is at its brightest in our skies. NASA/JPL-Caltech Now, you may have heard that Venus goes through phases, just like the Moon. You can see these phases with a modest telescope. But there’s a surprising twist: unlike the Moon, Venus isn’t at its brightest when it’s “full.” Instead, it shines most brilliantly in our skies when it’s a thinner crescent! It all comes down to distance. See, Venus only appears fuller when it’s on the far side of the Sun, and much farther from Earth. As it comes closer to us, its phase becomes a crescent, but the planet also looks much larger in the sky. Even as a crescent, the light from its closer position more than makes up for the smaller phase.
So, remember this Valentine’s proverb: “The goddess of love is at her most radiant when nearby!”
Moon Phases
Sky chart showing Jupiter and Mars high overhead after nightfall in February. NASA/JPL-Caltech Above are the phases of the Moon for February. Stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov. I’m Preston Dyches from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up for this month.
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By NASA
An FVR90 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) lifts off from the Monterey Bay Academy Airport near Watsonville, California, during the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) Shakedown Test in November 2024.NASA/Don Richey NASA is collaborating with the wildfire community to provide tools for some of the most challenging aspects of firefighting – particularly aerial nighttime operations.
In the future, agencies could more efficiently use drones, both remotely piloted and fully autonomous, to help fight wildfires. NASA recently tested technologies with teams across the country that will enable aircraft – including small drones and helicopters outfitted with autonomous technology for remote piloting – to monitor and fight wildfires 24 hours a day, even during low-visibility conditions.
Current aerial firefighting operations are limited to times when aircraft have clear visibility – otherwise, pilots run the risk of flying into terrain or colliding with other aircraft. NASA-developed airspace management technology will enable drones and remotely piloted aircraft to operate at night, expanding the window of time responders have to aerially suppress fires.
“We’re aiming to provide new tools – including airspace management technologies – for 24-hour drone operations for wildfire response,” said Min Xue, project manager of the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project within NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “This testing will provide valuable data to inform how we mature this technology for eventual use in the field.”
Over the past year, ACERO researchers developed a portable airspace management system (PAMS) drone pilots can use to safely send aircraft into wildfire response operations when operating drones from remote control systems or ground control stations.
Each PAMS, roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, is outfitted with a computer for airspace management, a radio for sharing information among PAMS units, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for picking up nearby air traffic – all encased in a durable and portable container.
NASA software on the PAMS allows drone pilots to avoid airborne collisions while remotely operating aircraft by monitoring and sharing flight plans with other aircraft in the network. The system also provides basic fire location and weather information. A drone equipped with a communication device acts as an airborne communication relay for the ground-based PAMS units, enabling them to communicate with each other without relying on the internet.
Engineers fly a drone at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to test aerial coordination capabilities.NASA/Mark Knopp To test the PAMS units’ ability to share and display vital information, NASA researchers placed three units in different locations outside each other’s line of sight at a hangar at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Researchers stationed at each unit entered a flight plan into their system and observed that each unit successfully shared flight plans with the others through a mesh radio network.
Next, researchers worked with team members in Virginia to test an aerial communications radio relay capability.
Researchers outfitted a long-range vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a camera, computer, a mesh radio, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for air traffic information. The team flew the aircraft and two smaller drones at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, purposely operating them outside each other’s line of sight.
The mesh radio network aboard the larger drone successfully connected with the small drones and multiple radio units on the ground.
Yasmin Arbab front-right frame, Alexey Munishkin, Shawn Wolfe, with Sarah Mitchell, standing behind, works with the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) Portable Airspace Management System (PAMS) case at the Monterey Bay Academy Airport near Watsonville, California.NASA/Don Richey NASA researchers then tested the PAMS units’ ability to coordinate through an aerial communications relay to simulate what it could be like in the field.
At Monterey Bay Academy Airport in Watsonville, California, engineers flew a winged drone with vertical takeoff and landing capability by Overwatch Aero, establishing a communications relay to three different PAMS units. Next, the team flew two smaller drones nearby.
Researchers tested the PAMS units’ ability to receive communications from the Overwatch aircraft and share information with other PAMS units. Pilots purposely submitted flight plans that would conflict with each other and intentionally flew the drones outside preapproved flight plans.
The PAMS units successfully alerted pilots to conflicting flight plans and operations outside preapproved zones. They also shared aircraft location with each other and displayed weather updates and simulated fire location data.
The test demonstrated the potential for using PAM units in wildfire operations.
“This testing is a significant step towards improving aerial coordination during a wildfire,” Xue said. “These technologies will improve wildfire operations, reduce the impacts of large wildfires, and save more lives,” Xue said.
This year, the team will perform a flight evaluation to further mature these wildfire technologies. Ultimately, the project aims to transfer this technology to the firefighting community community.
This work is led by the ACERO project under NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and supports the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s SPHEREx observatory undergoes testing at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in August 2024. Launching no earlier than Feb. 27, 2025, the mission will make the first all-sky spectroscopic survey in the near-infrared, helping to answer some of the biggest questions in astrophysics. BAE Systems/NASA/JPL-Caltech Shaped like a megaphone, the upcoming mission will map the entire sky in infrared light to answer big questions about the universe.
Expected to launch no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 27, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASA’s SPHEREx space observatory will provide astronomers with a big-picture view of the cosmos like none before. Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will map the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors, illuminating the origins of our universe, galaxies within it, and life’s key ingredients in our own galaxy. Here are six things to know about the mission.
1. The SPHEREx space telescope will shed light on a cosmic phenomenon called inflation.
In the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe increased in size by a trillion-trillionfold. Called inflation, this nearly instantaneous event took place almost 14 billion years ago, and its effects can be found today in the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe. By mapping the distribution of more than 450 million galaxies, SPHEREx will help scientists improve our understanding of the physics behind this extreme cosmic event.
Go behind the scenes with the team working on NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope as they talk through their rigorous testing process. NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems 2. The observatory will measure the collective glow from galaxies near and far.
Scientists have tried to estimate the total light output from all galaxies throughout cosmic history by observing individual galaxies and extrapolating to the trillions of galaxies in the universe. The SPHEREx space telescope will take a different approach and measure the total glow from all galaxies, including galaxies too small, too diffuse, or too distant for other telescopes to easily detect. Combining the measurement of this overall glow with other telescopes’ studies of individual galaxies will give scientists a more complete picture of all the major sources of light in the universe.
3. The mission will search the Milky Way galaxy for essential building blocks of life.
Life as we know it wouldn’t exist without basic ingredients such as water and carbon dioxide. The SPHEREx observatory is designed to find these molecules frozen in interstellar clouds of gas and dust, where stars and planets form. The mission will pinpoint the location and abundance of these icy compounds in our galaxy, giving researchers a better sense of their availability in the raw materials for newly forming planets.
Molecular clouds like this one, called Rho Ophiuchi, are collections of cold gas and dust in space where stars and planets can form. SPHEREx will survey such regions through-out the Milky Way galaxy to measure the abundance of water ice and other frozen mole-cules. NASA/JPL-Caltech 4. It adds unique strengths to NASA’s fleet of space telescopes.
Space telescopes like NASA’s Hubble and Webb have zoomed in on many corners of the universe to show us planets, stars, and galaxies in high resolution. But some questions — like how much light do all the galaxies in the universe collectively emit? — can be answered only by looking at the big picture. To that end, the SPHEREx observatory will provide maps that encompass the entire sky. Objects of scientific interest identified by SPHEREx can then be studied in more detail by targeted telescopes like Hubble and Webb.
5. The SPHEREx observatory will make the most colorful all-sky map ever.
The SPHEREx observatory “sees” infrared light. Undetectable to the human eye, this range of wavelengths is ideal for studying stars and galaxies. Using a technique called spectroscopy, the telescope can split the light into its component colors (individual wavelengths), like a prism creates a rainbow from sunlight, in order to measure the distance to cosmic objects and learn about their composition. With SPHEREx’s spectroscopic map in hand, scientists will be able to detect evidence of chemical compounds, like water ice, in our galaxy. They’ll not only measure the total amount of light emitted by galaxies in our universe, but also discern how bright that total glow was at different points in cosmic history. And they’ll chart the 3D locations of hundreds of millions of galaxies to study how inflation influenced the large-scale structure of the universe today.
6. The spacecraft’s cone-shaped design helps it stay cold and see faint objects.
The mission’s infrared telescope and detectors need to operate at around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 210 degrees Celsius). This is partly to prevent them from generating their own infrared glow, which might overwhelm the faint light from cosmic sources. To keep things cold while also simplifying the spacecraft’s design and operational needs, SPHEREx relies on an entirely passive cooling system — no electricity or coolants are used during normal operations. Key to making this feat possible are three cone-shaped photon shields that protect the telescope from the heat of Earth and the Sun, as well as a mirrored structure beneath the shields to direct heat from the instrument out into space. Those photon shields give the spacecraft its distinctive outline.
More About SPHEREx
SPHEREx is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. The mission principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.
For more information about the SPHEREx mission visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex
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Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Last Updated Jan 31, 2025 Related Terms
SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer) Exoplanets Galaxies Jet Propulsion Laboratory Stars The Universe Explore More
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By NASA
En este fotograma de vídeo, Jason Dworkin sostiene un vial que contiene parte de la muestra del asteroide Bennu que la misión OSIRIS-REx (Orígenes, Interpretación Espectral, Identificación de Recursos y Seguridad – Explorador de Regolito) de la NASA trajo a la Tierra en 2023. Dworkin es el científico del proyecto de la misión en el Centro Goddard de Vuelos Espaciales de la NASA en Greenbelt, Maryland.Credit: NASA/James Tralie Read this release in English here.
Los estudios de las rocas y el polvo del asteroide Bennu que fueron traídos a la Tierra por la nave espacial de la misión Orígenes, Interpretación Espectral, Identificación de Recursos y Seguridad – Explorador de Regolito (OSIRIS-REx, por sus siglas en inglés) de la NASA han revelado moléculas que, en nuestro planeta, son clave para la vida, así como un historial de la existencia de agua salada que podría haber servido como “caldo” para que estos compuestos interactuaran y se combinaran.
Los hallazgos no muestran evidencia de vida, pero sí sugieren que las condiciones necesarias para el surgimiento de la vida estaban muy extendidas en todo el sistema solar primitivo, lo que aumentaría las probabilidades de que la vida pudiera haberse formado en otros planetas y lunas.
“La misión OSIRIS-REx de la NASA ya está reescribiendo los libros de texto sobre lo que entendemos acerca de los comienzos de nuestro sistema solar”, dijo Nicky Fox, administradora asociada en la Dirección de Misiones Científicas en la sede de la NASA en Washington. “Los asteroides proporcionan una cápsula del tiempo sobre la historia de nuestro planeta natal, y las muestras de Bennu son fundamentales para nuestra comprensión de qué ingredientes en nuestro sistema solar existían antes de que comenzara la vida en la Tierra”.
En artículos sobre esta investigación científica publicados el miércoles en las revistas Nature y Nature Astronomy, científicos de la NASA y otras instituciones compartieron los resultados de los primeros análisis en profundidad de los minerales y moléculas hallados en las muestras de Bennu, las cuales fueron transportadas a la Tierra por la nave espacial OSIRIS-REx en 2023.
Como se detalla en el artículo de Nature Astronomy, entre las detecciones más significativas se encontraron aminoácidos (14 de los 20 que la vida en la Tierra utiliza para producir proteínas) y las cinco nucleobases (bases nitrogenadas) que la vida en la Tierra utiliza para almacenar y transmitir instrucciones genéticas en moléculas biológicas terrestres más complejas como el ADN y el ARN, incluyendo la forma de organizar los aminoácidos para formar proteínas.
Los científicos también describieron abundancias excepcionalmente altas de amoníaco en las muestras de Bennu. El amoníaco es importante para la biología porque, en las condiciones adecuadas, puede reaccionar con el formaldehído, el cual también fue detectado en las muestras, para formar moléculas complejas como los aminoácidos. Cuando los aminoácidos se unen en cadenas largas, forman proteínas, las cuales impulsan casi todas las funciones biológicas.
Estos componentes básicos para la vida detectados en las muestras de Bennu han sido hallados antes en rocas extraterrestres. Sin embargo, identificarlos en una muestra impoluta obtenida en el espacio respalda la idea de que los objetos que se formaron lejos del Sol podrían haber sido una fuente importante de los ingredientes precursores básicos para la vida en todo el sistema solar.
“Las pistas que estamos buscando son muy minúsculas y se destruyen o alteran con mucha facilidad al exponerse al ambiente de la Tierra”, dijo Danny Glavin, científico principal de muestras en el Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard de la NASA en Greenbelt, Maryland, y coautor principal del artículo publicado en Nature Astronomy. “Es por eso que algunos de estos nuevos descubrimientos no serían posibles sin una misión de retorno que trajera las muestras, sin medidas meticulosas de control de la contaminación y sin una cuidadosa curaduría y almacenamiento de este precioso material proveniente de Bennu”.
Mientras que el equipo de Glavin analizó las muestras de Bennu en busca de indicios de compuestos relacionados con la vida, sus colegas, dirigidos por Tim McCoy, quien es curador de meteoritos en el Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Instituto Smithsonian en Washington, y Sara Russell, mineralogista cósmica en el Museo de Historia Natural de Londres, buscaron pistas sobre el entorno en el que se habrían formado estas moléculas. En un informe publicado en la revista Nature, los científicos describen, además, la evidencia que hallaron de un antiguo entorno propicio para poner en marcha la química de la vida.
Desde calcita hasta halita y silvita, los científicos identificaron en la muestra de Bennu rastros de 11 minerales que se forman a medida que el agua que contiene las sales disueltas en ella se va evaporando a lo largo de extensos períodos de tiempo, dejando atrás las sales en forma de cristales sólidos.
Se han detectado o ha habido indicaciones de la existencia de salmueras similares en todo el sistema solar, incluso en el planeta enano Ceres y la luna Encélado de Saturno.
Aunque los científicos han detectado previamente varias evaporitas en meteoritos que caen a la superficie de la Tierra, nunca han visto un conjunto completo de sales sedimentadas que conservara un proceso de evaporación que podría haber durado miles de años o más. Algunos minerales presentes en Bennu, como la trona, fueron descubiertos por primera vez en muestras extraterrestres.
“Estos artículos científicos realmente se complementan para tratar de explicar cómo los ingredientes de la vida se unieron para hacer lo que vemos en este asteroide alterado acuosamente”, dijo McCoy.
A pesar de todas las respuestas que ha proporcionado la muestra de Bennu, quedan varias preguntas. Muchos aminoácidos se pueden producir en dos versiones de imagen especular, como un par de manos izquierda y derecha. La vida en la Tierra produce casi exclusivamente la variedad levógira (que va hacia la izquierda, o en sentido antihorario), pero las muestras de Bennu contienen una mezcla igual de ambas. Esto significa que, en la Tierra primitiva, los aminoácidos también podrían haber comenzado en una mezcla de iguales proporciones. La razón por la que la vida “giró hacia la izquierda” en lugar de hacia la derecha sigue siendo un misterio.
“OSIRIS-REx ha sido una misión muy exitosa”, dijo Jason Dworkin, científico que trabaja en el proyecto OSIRIS-REx desde el centro Goddard de NASA y es coautor principal del artículo de Nature Astronomy. “Los datos de OSIRIS-REx añaden grandes pinceladas a una imagen de un sistema solar rebosante de potencial para la vida. ¿Por qué nosotros, hasta ahora, solo vemos vida en la Tierra y no en otros lugares? Esa es la pregunta verdaderamente cautivante”.
El centro Goddard de la NASA proporcionó la gestión general de la misión, la ingeniería de sistemas y la garantía y seguridad de la misión OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta, de la Universidad de Arizona en Tucson, es el investigador principal. Esa universidad dirige el equipo científico y la planificación y el procesamiento de datos de las observaciones científicas de la misión. Lockheed Martin Space en Littleton, Colorado, construyó la nave espacial y proporcionó las operaciones de vuelo. El centro Goddard y KinetX Aerospace fueron responsables de la navegación de la nave espacial OSIRIS-REx. La curaduría de OSIRIS-REx es llevada a cabo en el Centro Espacial Johnson de la NASA en Houston. Las asociaciones internacionales para esta misión incluyen el instrumento de altímetro láser de OSIRIS-REx proveniente de la CSA (Agencia Espacial Canadiense) y la colaboración científica para las muestras del asteroide con la misión Hayabusa2 de la JAXA (Agencia Japonesa de Exploración Aeroespacial). OSIRIS-REx es la tercera misión del Programa Nuevas Fronteras de la NASA, el cual es gestionado por el Centro de Vuelo Espacial Marshall de la agencia en Huntsville, Alabama, para la Dirección de Misiones Científicas de la agencia en Washington.
Para obtener más información sobre la misión OSIRIS-REx, visita el sitio web (en inglés):
https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
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María José Viñas /Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
240-458-0248
maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Rani Gran
Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard, Greenbelt, Maryland
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Last Updated Jan 29, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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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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