This undated image made available by NASA shows the asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. This undated image made available by NASA shows the asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Scientists have confirmed the presence of organic molecules on the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, opening the door to the possibility that life on Earth arose from cosmic origins.

Analysing returned samples Tim McCoy (right), curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and research geologist Cari Corrigan examine scanning electron microscope ...

Iron is a key nutrient for algae, but in areas such as the Southern Ocean and the eastern tropical Pacific, the mineral is not available in abundance. But if the iron content in Bennu is high and ...

(THE CONVERSATION) A bright fireball streaked across the sky above mountains, glaciers and spruce forest near the town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, on the evening of March 31, 1965.

so despite Bennu's youth, it's made up of some seriously old stuff. "The transport and delivery of organic compounds from [primitive asteroids] could have been a source of molecules available for ...

Bennu is just the latest body in the Solar System ... Estimates of the hazard to Earth also depend on the available datasets, and Palomar Observatory data from 2016 is being reviewed.

They calculated that there is a very small chance — about 1-in-2700, or 0.037% to be exact — that asteroid Bennu, which is roughly the size of the Empire State Building, could collide with our ...

A capsule carrying precious samples from asteroid Bennu landed on Earth on Sunday. Nasa scientists hope the material could give hints to how life here began. BBC Science editor Rebecca Morelle ...

Pristine samples of asteroid Bennu have revealed something entirely unexpected — not only does the asteroid contain the chemical building blocks of life, but it also originated from an ancient, ...

In 2016, NASA embarked on a new and unique mission: sending the Osiris-REx spacecraft to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu to study the rocky space object and collect samples to return to ...