Scientists have discovered a unique sequence of minerals that formed from evaporated water in samples from Bennu. These minerals date back to the early solar system and include compounds never ...

Not only does Bennu contain evidence of ancient pools of liquid water — it also carries minerals crucial to life, amino acids, and the five nucleobases for DNA and RNA. As asteroids crash into ...

In particular, researchers identified a diverse range of salt minerals, including sodium-bearing phosphates and carbonates that formed brines when liquid water on Bennu’s parent body either evaporated ...

This combination of rock, water and organics is one reason OSIRIS-REx chose to sample the organic-rich asteroid Bennu, where water and organic compounds essential to the origin of life could be found.

Calcite (calcium carbonate) is the first mineral to form from evaporation on Bennu. Gaylussite (white coating) from Searles Lake, California, U.S. (NMNH 102881) on trona. Gaylussite (water-bearing ...

The first paper, which appears in the journal Nature, revealed something completely unexpected — the rocks from Bennu contain various types of salt crystals known to form when briny water slowly ...

24, 2023, we got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have formed on Earth. The CI chondrites and asteroid Bennu Advertisement To learn about an asteroid – a ...