NASA has found essential building blocks for life in samples from the asteroid Bennu (photos).

There are 20 amino acids that form the proteins essential for life on Earth, and scientists from NASA have discovered exactly 14 of them on the asteroid Bennu. Samples from this asteroid were brought back to Earth in 2023 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The findings were published in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, reports Space.

The researchers found that the asteroid Bennu, which formed in the early Solar System, contains water and carbon. This discovery was somewhat expected, but another finding was a bit surprising. Scientists identified 14 amino acids, a high concentration of ammonia, and five nitrogenous bases that life on Earth uses to transmit genetic instructions in DNA and RNA.

According to the study authors, the results do not provide evidence of life itself, but they suggest that the conditions necessary for life likely were widespread throughout the early Solar System. This increases the chances that life could have formed on other planets and their moons.

Scientists state that the asteroid Bennu contains the necessary components for life as we know it, but they question why life did not arise on the asteroid itself. This question remains to be answered.

The researchers also found evidence of saline brine with traces of 11 minerals rich in sodium carbonate, phosphate, sulfate, chloride, and fluoride.

The study authors indicate that the new discovery suggests that water, organic material, and biologically important elements could have been delivered to Earth and other planets by asteroids. In other words, asteroids may have brought the essential components for life to our planet, and possibly similar components were delivered to other planets as well.

The scientists also discovered a significant amount of ammonia in the Bennu samples, with levels approximately 100 times higher than the natural levels of ammonia found in soils on Earth. Ammonia is essential for many biological processes. It likely served as a key chemical building block in the formation of amino acids and nucleobases, as well as the genetic components of DNA and RNA, the researchers say.

This finding indicates that Bennu, or the parent asteroid from which it broke off, must have once existed in colder regions of the Solar System; otherwise, ammonia would have dissipated.

Researchers claim that Bennu contains many precursors to the building blocks of life, as well as evidence that it broke away from a water-rich object that likely formed beyond the orbit of Saturn.