Smithsonian and NASA scientists set out to collect an asteroid sample that may hold clues to the origins of life in our solar ...

In 2016, NASA embarked on a new and unique mission: sending the Osiris-REx spacecraft to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu to study the rocky space object and collect samples to return to ...

The asteroid Bennu is puzzling scientists, with samples from the space rock showing weirder properties than they expected. These include extremely high nitrogen levels and improbably magnetic ...

The mission, which launched on Sept. 8, 2016, targeting the primordial asteroid Bennu, believed to have remained largely unchanged since the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.

Studies of rocks and dust collected from Bennu, an asteroid orbiting Earth, have revealed clues about how life may have first formed on Earth. A NASA mission collected the sample and brought it ...

A sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu has been found to contain an abundance of water and carbon, reinforcing the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. Just two weeks after ...

In October 2020, a van-sized robotic spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Bennu, a 525-meter-wide asteroid 320 million kilometers from Earth. As part of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission ...

In January 2025, scientists announced the discovery of organic molecules— the building blocks of life— in samples retrieved from a distant asteroid named Bennu. What can this discovery reveal ...

A modern case in point: The asteroid Bennu contains all the materials needed for life. The OSIRIS-REx mission launched in 2016. Its main aim was to study Bennu and retrieve samples to bring back ...

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams (4 ounces) of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after ...

A capsule carrying precious samples from asteroid Bennu landed on Earth on Sunday. Nasa scientists hope the material could give hints to how life here began. BBC Science editor Rebecca Morelle ...

Climatic and ecological consequences Responses to dust injections of 400 million tonnes from a Bennu-type asteroid impact: spatial changes in surface temperature, total precipitation, percentage ...