Scientists found that asteroid Bennu contained a set of salty mineral deposits that formed in an exact sequence when a brine evaporated, leaving clues about the type of water that flowed billions of ...

"In previous research, uracil and nicotinic acid were detected in the samples from asteroid Ryugu, but the other four nucleobases were absent. The difference in abundance and complexity of N ...

The asteroid Ryugu used to pass far closer to the sun, even closer than Mercury, an analysis of images shot by Japan's Hayabusa 2 space probe reveals. The probe snapped the images of the asteroid ...

Material from the asteroid Ryugu obtained by Japan’s asteroid probe Hayabusa2. Image source: JAXA And that is exactly why researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa analyzed ...

For instance, the first-ever space-rock-sample-return mission was performed by Japan's aerospace agency, JAXA, which delivered about 5 grams (0.2 ounces) of material from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth.

Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source and Molecular Foundry provided powerful tools to study asteroid samples returned by NASA ...

similar to the samples collected from asteroid Ryugu during the Hayabusa2 mission. Bennu is actually a broken-off chunk of a larger asteroid that is about 4.5 billion years old—roughly the same ...

Credit: NASA NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brought back 121.6 grams of asteroid Bennu, unveiling nitrogen-rich organic matter, including DNA’s essential bases. Scientists found differences between Bennu’s ...