KJZZ is a service of Rio Salado College,
and Maricopa Community Colleges

Copyright © 2025 KJZZ/Rio Salado College/MCCCD
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Bennu asteroid sample holds building blocks for life, researchers say

Bennu
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The asteroid Bennu.

Researchers say the asteroid Bennu has the building blocks for life on it. The samples collected and returned to Earth were part of the University of Arizona-led OSIRS-REx mission.

Two newly published papers show it was critical for the OSIRIS-REx mission to actually go out to the asteroid to gather the samples.

That’s because the amino acids and other chemical compounds would have been contaminated by the earth’s surface if they instead studied a normal meteorite.

Another study found salty remnants of water left behind on the asteroid would not have survived entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

UA professor Dante Lauretta led the mission and told Arizona Public Media the studies show all the ingredients for life.

“So basically the building blocks of life were in an ocean in the ancient solar system before the Earth even existed, and the samples that OSIRIS-REx returned have recorded that history," Lauretta said.

He added the the samples show life’s building blocks were scattered throughout the early solar system.

"There's been, yeah, hints that meteorites might have contained the letters of the genetic code. But because we went to the asteroid and we brought it back and we kept it clean and pristine. We can say with high confidence these absolutely came from outer space," Lauretta said.

The studies were published in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. They did not find evidence of life.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to an editing error, the headline has been updated to correct the spelling of Bennu.

Greg Hahne started as a news intern at KJZZ in 2020 and returned as a field correspondent in 2021. He learned his love for radio by joining Arizona State University's Blaze Radio, where he worked on the production team.