The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to the sample to Earth in September of 2023, and these studies show that it contains amino acids, nucleobases, and minerals known as evaporites—all elements of life’s building blocks.

This mineral-rich asteroid might have carried the seeds of life. Planetary scientists have discovered organic matter essential to life in dust and rock retrieved from an asteroid known as Bennu. The finding supports the theory that near-Earth asteroids,

The Bennu samples contain 14 of the 20 amino acids that are essential for life on Earth to build proteins. Also found were all five of the basic building block for life — Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine, Thymine, and Uracil, the key components of both DNA and RNA.