A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world.

Two new papers describe hints to a brine-filled environment on the 4.5-billion-year-old space rock and the presence of amino acids, offering clues to how early Earth got its ingredients for life

Scientists have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in the samples collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission from a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu.

Molecules friendly to life have been found in samples of the asteroid Bennu, which NASA collected with a robotic probe five years ago.

Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.

Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best evidence to date that such space rocks may have seeded early Earth with the raw ingredients that fostered the emergence of living organisms.

Bennu contains minerals and thousands of organic molecules, including the chemical components that make up DNA.