In a new analysis of Bennu rock and dust, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers confirmed the presence of 14 amino acids, previously found in analyses of Bennu samples, and also tentatively detected traces of tryptophan. This amino acid has never been definitively found in extraterrestrial material. The team also detected five nucleobases, the components that make up RNA and DNA. This means that both the building blocks of proteins (amino acids) and the genetic blueprint (nucleobases) were found in the same place.
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-asteroid-amino-acids-clues-life.html
4 Comments
Pluribus tie-in promotion?
The spacecraft that returned this sample flew for 2 years to get within 5km of the asteroid Bennu, studied it for 2 years, got close enough for a robotic arm to grab samples from the asteroid with out landing, completed a 2 year journey back to earth, launched a return capsule with the sample which landed back on earth. Now the spacecraft is heading to study the asteroid Apophis.
I wonder if this is going to upset creationists or if they are going to just ignore it.
This is exciting, with regards to our question of whether there may be life on other planets. Since we know that basic single celled life appeared on earth soon after the earth formed and cooled down, adding this finding to it makes it even more likely that many planets in our galaxy have life.
That doesn’t mean intelligent life is out there but it seems more and more likely that bacterial type of life is common.