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The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a historic return to Earth in 2023, bringing back 4.3 ounces (121.6 grams) of invaluable dust and rock from the asteroid Bennu, collected during its mission in 2020. This remarkable sample return marked not just an engineering triumph but the onset of an extensive scientific exploration.
On January 29, NASA held a press conference to share significant findings from two research teams analyzing the Bennu samples. Featured in two papers published in the journal Nature, the analysis revealed that Bennu harbored a rich assortment of amino acids, including 14 of the 20 that constitute the proteins essential for life. While these findings do not indicate the presence of life itself, they emphasize the complex molecular building blocks that sustain it, reinforcing the hypothesis that materials like these could have been delivered to Earth by asteroids.
Additionally, scientists www.astronomy.com