Nobody knows how life began on Earth, but some tantalizing clues from an asteroid suggest it might not have started here.

Why Trust Us? Two exciting new studies detail the life-supporting contents of a 4.3-ounce sample of the asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023 ...

The findings “bolster the hypothesis that asteroids like Bennu could have delivered the raw ingredients to Earth prior to the emergence of life,” Dan Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tells ...

So far, we’ve learned that it is a “rubble pile”-type asteroid rather than a solid body, and recently that it bears many of the ingredients for life. But Bennu is more than just a near-Earth ...

Two new studies examining these extraterrestrial space grains found signs of life’s molecules preserved on the asteroid’s ancient surface. Dust and rocks from Bennu contained all five ...

Astronomers estimate that Bennu has a 1 in 2,700 chance of affecting Earth in September 2182, which equates to a 0.037% chance. The asteroid, which contains the building blocks of life according ...

Bennu, a rocky object classified as a near-Earth asteroid, has a one-in-2,700 chance of colliding with Earth, a study has ...

“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 ...

Science correspondent Allan Blackman joins Kathryn to talk about what samples of the asteroid Bennu reveal about the building ...