NASA Discovers Building Blocks of Life on Asteroid Bennu: Carbon and Water Samples

Saturday, 14 October 2023 | 07:42 WIB
Surya Lesmana / LES

Asteroid Bennu.

Houston, Beritasatu.com – Scientists from the US Space Agency (NASA) discovered the building blocks of life in samples they took from the asteroid Bennu in space. The 4.5 billion year old asteroid sample was taken by the Osiris-Rex space probe, which recently landed in Utah.

NASA scientists who opened the hatch containing the asteroid samples were shocked after examining them and seeing the contents of the meteorite fragments. It turns out that this sample contains carbon and water, which are the building blocks of life on Earth.

“Together this content is the composition of life on Earth,” explained NASA.

These samples from the asteroid Bennu could reveal answers to questions scientists have sought for decades about how the solar system formed. In the two weeks since Bennu’s asteroid samples were sent, scientists have analyzed rock fragments and dust around the mission’s main tube to get a preliminary reading of the asteroid’s composition.

The main analysis will be done in the next few weeks when they open the tube. According to Nature, the asteroid Bennu has been found to have the highest percentage of carbon ever measured in an extraterrestrial object at 4.7 percent.

“The wealth of carbon-rich materials and the abundance of water-bearing minerals are just the tip of the cosmic iceberg. “These discoveries, made possible through years of dedicated collaboration and cutting-edge science, propel us on a journey to understand not only our environment, but also the potential origins of life,” said Osiris-Rex principal investigator Dante Lauretta.

2023-10-14 00:42:00
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