The sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. It marked the ...

All forms of Earth life have specific chemicals in their makeup, such as amino acids and sugars. Scientists have known that ...

It took a while for scientists to gain access to the samples that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission took from the asteroid Bennu, but the wait is proving to be worth it. A new study published January 29 in ...

The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023, and these studies show that it contains amino ...

Credit: NASA "We're seeing minerals in Bennu samples that we have never seen before in a meteorite or any extraterrestrial sample," said Tim McCoy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural ...

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending towards asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface. NASA/Goddard ...

The potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu probably won't hit Earth. But this study shows the damage a space rock of its size ...

New findings reveal that a NASA mission traveled to an asteroid that may have once been covered in salty lakes containing ...

Rock and dust samples brought back to Earth from the asteroid Bennu contain organic matter and a variety of minerals crucial to the emergence of life ...

“Comparing the sample return to meteorites in our Collection, using state-of-the-art analytical facilities here in the Museum, is invaluable in helping us understand our origins.” Bennu is thought to ...

Scientists believe Bennu was once part of a larger “parent” asteroid that lost a few pieces due to an impact. Then, those blasted-off pieces coalesced, like a pile of rocky rubble that is weakly held ...