See multiple views from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft's touching down on asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Credit: JAXA/U. Tokyo/Kochi ...

What minerals within the grain samples from asteroid Ryugu that returned to Earth can teach scientists about this intriguing ...

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to return samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ...

Researchers believe this 4.6-billion-year-old piece of rock could reveal compounds present at the beginning of the solar system and the building blocks of life.

The spacecraft’s sample container kept the Bennu sample airtight, so these evaporites stayed intact. These results suggest that the asteroid used to be wet and muddy.

According to the Nature Astronomy paper on the organic makeup of Bennu Samples, “Bennu samples are volatile rich, with more carbon, nitrogen and ammonia than samples from asteroid Ryugu and most ...

A previous sample from 162173 Ryugu, a diamond-shaped asteroid, contained myriad organic compounds, including vitamin B3 and uracil, the additional nucleobase used in RNA. Like Ryugu, Bennu is a ...

Exploring mysteries of Asteroid Bennu Date: January 29, 2025 Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Summary: Scientists found that asteroid Bennu contained a set of salty mineral ...

Asteroid Ryugu photographed by Japan's Hayabusa2 mission at a distance of about 12 miles (19 kilometers). JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba ...

A similar phosphate was found in a sample from the asteroid Ryugu collected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 mission and returned to Earth in December 2020.

Asteroid Bennu is a near-Earth Object with a diameter of approximately 500 meters (which is about 3/10 of a mile). It orbits around the Sun every 436.6 days and comes within a close distance of 0. ...