NASA scientists found amino acids, key minerals, and nucleobases for DNA in samples from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission. It's a win for alien life.

Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.

In a triumph for NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, new findings suggest that tiny bits of rock retrieved from the asteroid Bennu hold lingering traces of ancient salt water. The discovery hints that life-friendly chemistry could be far more common in space than astronomers previously thought.

Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that,