The 'building blocks' for life have been discovered in an asteroid, study finds

The building blocks for life have been found in samples collected from an asteroid, adding evidence to the theory that these space objects delivered these key organic compounds to Earth early in its history.

Samples of an asteroid called Bennu, which were collected by a NASA spacecraft and transported to Earth for testing, contain a wide array of minerals and thousands of organic compounds.

These include the chemicals needed to sustain life, such as amino acids, which are the molecules that make up proteins. Researchers also found nucleobases, the fundamental components of DNA. Every living thing on Earth contains DNA which contains the information needed to build and maintain an organism, and 14 of the 20 amino acids life on Earth needs to make proteins were found on the space rock.

The incredible findings support the theory that asteroids delivered these important ingredients to our home planet when they crashed into Earth billions of years ago.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx to bring samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth: What to … Aljazeera / VideoElephant

It also suggests that the conditions needed to create life were widespread across the solar system in its early days, an era of utter chaos and mayhem with frequent collisions between asteroids and the developing planets. Scientists believe the same compounds could have been delivered to other worlds.

Bennu is around 500m at its equator, which is slightly wider than the height of the Empire State Building. NASA sent a spacecraft called Osiris Rex to Bennu in 2016 and the cargo of about 120g of black dust was returned to Earth in 2023 — and it proved to be a treasure trove.

Nicky Fox, the associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, said via The Telegraph: “Bennu contains many precursor building blocks of life along with the evidence it comes from an ancient wet world.

The findings do not show evidence for life itself, but they do show that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were likely widespread across the early solar system. This of course increases the odds that life could have formed on other planets.

“This all supports the theory that Bennu [was] among the sources that delivered water and chemical building blocks for life to Earth.”

The findings have been published in two papers in the journal Nature.

This study adds evidence to the theory that asteroids brought water and other organic material to Earth when it was bombarded with asteroids, which would have been colliding with other planets as well.

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