Japanese scientists detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back 121.6 grams of asteroid Bennu,

Asteroids, small airless bodies within the inner solar system, are theorized to have contributed water and chemical building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago. Although meteorites on Earth come from asteroids,

Samples contain all five nucleobases of DNA and RNA, supporting theory that asteroids may have seeded Earth with life's essential ingredients.

The building blocks for organic matter have been discovered on the asteroid Bennu, as deatiled in a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research gives new insight into how life originated on Earth and where we might find it elsewhere in the universe.

The study of asteroid samples is a highly lucrative area of research and one of the best ways to determine how the Solar System came to be. Given that asteroids are leftover material from the formation of the Solar System,

Analyzing a sample from an asteroid named Bennu reveals the chemicals necessary to form DNA and RNA.

Joint Press Release by Hokkaido University, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Kyushu University, Tohoku University, and

Rock and dust samples brought back from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu contain organic matter, including amino acids and all five DNA and RNA bases, as well as salts that formed early in the history of Bennu's parent body.

In samples NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists have discovered of organic compounds, including key building blocks of life like amino acids.