In samples taken from a distant asteroid, scientists have discovered a host of organic molecules, including key building blocks of life. The surprising finding suggests the chemical ingredients necessary for life may have been widespread across the early solar system. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which launched in 2016, scooped up bits of dust, soil and rocks from the asteroid Bennu and then brought them to Earth in 2023. The 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid is thought to have formed in the first 10 million years of the solar system’s existence.
An analysis of that collected asteroid material, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, indicates that the samples included thousands of organic compounds and 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on Earth uses to form proteins. The samples also contained four “nucleobases” — the main components of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic blueprints within our cells. The researchers did not find evidence of life itself on Bennu; rather, their results bolster the theory that asteroids that crashed into Earth when it was young may have delivered the necessary ingredients for life to take hold. The findings could also mean that the chances life formed on other planets and moons in the solar system could be higher than scientists previously thought. “The OSIRIS-REx mission is already rewriting the textbook on what we understand about the ingredients thought to be necessary for the emergence of life in our solar system,” Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said Wednesday in a news briefing.
Similar organic molecules, including amino acids, have been detected in meteorites before, but these fragments of space rocks are imperfect specimens because they are studied after enduring fiery trips through Earth’s atmosphere.
Whereas meteorites have been exposed to and contaminated by conditions on Earth that could skew scientific results, gathering samples directly from an asteroid in space is like peering into a time capsule from the nascent solar system. “What’s so significant about the OSIRIS-REx Bennu findings is that those samples are pristine,” said Danny Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The return canister that carried the Bennu samples shielded them from harsh conditions during atmospheric re-entry, Glavin said. “The bottom line is: We have a higher confidence that the organic material we’re seeing in these samples are extraterrestrial and not contamination,” he said. “We can trust these results.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nasa-asteroid-samples-scientists-discover-214224865.html
Comment: So this small sample from the asteroid Bennu contained 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on Earth uses to form proteins and four nucleobases — the main components of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic blueprints within our cells. All that from one sample taken from one asteroid. The sample also contained abundant carbon and water. Sounds to me like good evidence that life originated elsewhere and just happened to be deposited on Earth. I find it also reasonable to believe that those building blocks of life were deposited elsewhere in the universe or at least within our solar system. Have any of these things been detected on our Moon or on Mars yet?
TTG
From wiki:
Asteroid 101955 Bennu “is named after Bennu, the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth.” Amazing coincidence?
I’m hoping Doctors Fox and Glavin survive the the African immigrant’s purges that are coming soon.
I used to do research in interstellar chemistry early in my career and it’s a fascinating area. We’ve been detecting amino acids in meteorites for a long time and there are ways to tell that these are not terrestrial contamination (isotopic ratios for example). One thing that haven’t been able to do is probe these samples for proteins, which are chains of amino acids. Unfortunately, extraction of material from rock degrades proteins into amino acids, so presence of amino acids may also indicate presence of proteins.
Since I’ve been involved in this research it’s been my firm belief that formation of basic buildings block of life occurs during formation of a solar system. Then any planets or satellites will be bombarded with comets and asteroids containing these molecules and if they are able to support life, life will form there. So formation of life is a chance event, our universe is geared towards forming life wherever it would flourish.
voislav,
This is the passage from one of the linked articles that intrigued me.
In this one sample, the bases for all five nucleotides that form all terrestrial DNA and RNA was found along with necessary sugars and salts. If another, more elaborate mission isn’t launched to Bennu and probably other asteroids, humanity is beyond dull and hopelessly timid. I know this will be blasphemous to A Portuguese Man and maybe also to Jim, but I think this is our opportunity to touch the face of God or whatever metaphor one may choose.
Yes, so the hypothesis is that Bennu was formed by a breakup of a larger body, likely early in the formation of the solar system. When I was doing this research, we’ve noticed there was a divergence in chemistry of meteorites that originate within the solar system (originating from bodies like Bennu) and those originating from the fringes of the solar system (originating from Oort cloud comets).
Our theory was that the difference is because chemistry within the solar system is driven by combination of surface of the dust particles that go on to form these bodies and solar radiation. So we thought that these molecules are formed within the original dust cloud that accreted into our solar system. The cloud provided enough radiation to drive chemistry, but at the same time shielded the resulting products from harsh solar radiation than may degrade them. The consequence of this is that every carbon-rich body in the solar system carries these seeds of life safely tucked inside them, protected until they find a favourable environment.
So whatever people’s religious opinions are, we seem to live in an universe that whose basic laws drive formation of life in any environment that will support them. So when I saw this discovery on Bennu, I was not surprised because my expectation is that most carbonaceous asteroids or comets we analyze will have these molecules present.
Voislav –
I’m confused. For non-scientists like me, are you saying that carbonaceous asteroids like Bennu got their beginning from dust clouds? And those dust clouds were formed by break up of either larger bodies in the solar system or from comets? What about the Kuiper Belt? When will NASA or some others bring back samples from there? Probably not in my lifetime. Or have they already?
I like the comet theory, reminds me of the Christmas stories of the sky the night Christ was born. (For Jim & Portuguese Man – No atheists in my foxhole. But I’ve been told that God works in mysterious ways).
All Lifes Building Blocks…DNA..RNA..Types..Are all In Full Display..Right here on Earth…Creative Creation…Every where We…Humans Look…Sure am Glad We Are Created In Gods Image…Recorded…and Displayed..
Those Asteroids..can scatter around some Amino’s Not Life..So Stay Home..Eat Beef..Plant a arden..Go Fishing..Feel Gods Love..He made that Possible..
I am sure that life is out there in the giant universe and I am also sure that due to the speed of light conundrum we will never meet it face to face.
> Sounds to me like good evidence that life originated elsewhere and just happened to be deposited on Earth
Sounds to me you just want it to be true.
Amino-acids are as much evidence for life as logs are evidence for cabins.
No one seeing logs coming down a river would say “that’s some good evidence cabins come from up the river somewhere”.
It’s unfortunate how the flimsiest speculation in biology (or “life-sciences”), the kind of which would be totally shredded in any “hard” science if it ever pretended to be otherwise, just gets robed in virtual certainty for as long as it can be perceived – rightly or wrongly – as potentially damaging to Christian theology or the biblical account.
The fruits of which we tasted during the covid crisis, I guess. General hysteria, confusion, speculation, and totally ineffective vaccines and their ridiculous enforcement, that destroyed the public’s trust in public health and seriously damaged the prestige of scientific and academic institutions worldwide. All of which, IMO, are irrecoverable.
The irony of it all is that the more “we” look, both in at the macroscopic and the microscopic level, the more we see that we’ll never be able to see. The harder we look, the better the instruments, the more elusive that final stroke some people are so desperate to inflict on the idea of God, becomes.
It’s strangely satisfying watching atheists spend themselves looking deeper and deeper in the so-far apparent infinite void or in the so-far apparent infinite complexity of microscopic life. Almost as if it were designed to suck and make vain all that effort… LOL
Yes, materialism.
The rejection of the Transcendent was under way in France from the eighteenth century on as we became aware that divine revelation need offer no explanation for the creation of the material world. But it was always lurking around somewhere, long before.
In England, and well before Darwin published the Origin of Species, the geologists were uncovering facts that troubled those who wished to believe God created Man as per Genesis. Textual criticism of the sacred texts in Germany, that treated the Bible as as open to such analysis as any other text, also shook those believing that the Bible was the direct and incontrovertible revealed word of God unaffected by changes occurring in transmission or even translation, or by the re-writes resulting from the doctrinal disputes of past ages.
Darwin dithered for years before he published. He was well aware that his work opened the door to straight materialism and I think eventually went through that door himself, the dumb bastard. Well before that publication straight materialism was in the air anyway. Such as Tennyson were aware of the implications and were much troubled by it. They saw the consequences of the abolition of God but could see no way round that abolition:-
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
LVI
“So careful of the type?” but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, “A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.
“Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more.” And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law —
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed —
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
A bit agonised, that. Well, wouldn’t you be if someone told you you were no more than a chance collection of atoms and the old verities no longer had purchase?
Didn’t bother some. They compartmentalised, maybe. Maxwell, who had every excuse for becoming an out and out materialist, was able to keep to a devout Christianity untroubled by such seeming contradictions. Or as far as I can understand it, which is likely not very far, his faith underpinned his scientific work:-
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-genius-and-faith-of-faraday-and-maxwell
Even today men seek to reconcile the discovery of physical phenomena with a belief in the Divine. There’s an astonishingly naïve preface to one of Küng’s works in which he adduces Big Bang theory as proof of divine creation. But we are long past the need for such props to faith. Or whatever faith or insight into the Transcendent as may be revealed to us.
EO,
My favorite college course was “The Century of Darwin” taught by an enthusiastic old history professor. We examined scientific discoveries and developments in religious thought well before and after Darwin’s “The Origin of species” The change in thought, although remarkable, was slow and gradual.
You mention that “Even today men seek to reconcile the discovery of physical phenomena with a belief in the Divine.” Over two centuries ago this was called natural theology, popularized by Edmund Paley’s writings and his watchmaker analogy. That line of thought is still around today and remains popular among creationists. Another more unorthodox approach is in the many works of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, a Jesuit priest and archeologist/paleontologist who was close to being defrocked and worse by the Vatican. I find his view both exciting and intriguing. He is back in favor with the current Pope as well as his predecessor. This is how Jane Goodall put it:
“There are really only two ways, it seems to me, in which we can think about our existence here on Earth. We either agree with Macbeth that life is nothing more than a ‘tale told by an idiot,’ a purposeless emergence of life-forms including the clever, greedy, selfish, and unfortunate species that we call homo sapiens – the ‘evolutionary goof.’ Or we believe that, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it, ‘There is something afoot in the universe, something that looks like gestation and birth.’ In other words, a plan, a purpose to it all.”
(Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. New York: Warner Books, 1999: xi-xii.)
Tennyson Wrote…”Love was Creations Final Flaw..’
Without Gods Love…Even after the Fall..into Sin Nature.
Because of Statans Temptaions..and Hussle..in The Garden of Eden..Man would not Have Survived..The Exile..
Temptation..Is Very Bad..and The Worlds Full of Evil Hustlers…
But Gods LOVE..has always Spared the Human Race..The One in HIS Image..The Right DNA.+ Then He Sent Jesus..To Save Mankind..Those That Make Up The Body of Christ….
And Will Take Them to Heaven ..For Eternal Life..YES…That Life..That God..Those Angels..
Other Life..Higher Beings..God…?? Always Right Here..because Heaven is Gods Throne…and The Earth His Footstool..and The
Garden Paradise He Created for His Enjoyment..Those Daily Walks..Loving Nature.. Just Like Human Nature..Does..
We Will See Whats Out There..When God Takes Us Out There..
While All Evil..and Death..Are Destroyed On Earth..And We Have A New Ark..to Save Us..If We are Under Gods Grace..
Those Events are Near..and the World Is Nervous..Looking for a a Human..{Or AI Created) Saviour..he Tech Before the Wreck..
We are Living on Gods Planet.and Gods Garden..All Nature..was Created by God.. The Word is..Revelation…Not Evolution..
Man kind Was Smart Enough..To Adapt and Survive..With Gods Love..Mercy and Grace.. Thats My Deep and Personal Belief..
Jim..
A Washington lawyer has written a scholarly, extensively footnoted, 72 page article examining definitional and methodological issues that have arisen in the USG’s attempts to understand UAP.
https://harvardnsj.org/2025/01/12/flying-saucers-and-the-ivory-dome-congressional-oversight-concerning-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena/.
One particular part of Dillon Guthrie’s article deserves quoting
Should the IC step up to the plate and squarely address this issue?
A good question.
Or do they have enough other issues they are being asked to address?
Like Israel, Iran, and Ukraine.
They (the IC) have limited resources.
At this time, it is an interesting theory. But given the vastness of our universe, the probability of life, of some kind, can be more than theoretical. As has been pointed out, that vastness also makes any contact improbable. I am sure there will be further discoveries that will change perceptions. In the meantime, it may be a good idea to clean up what we got.
Christopher Mellon points out that almost all publicly known reporting on UAP from the military has come from tactical assets,
not the vast strategic surveillance systems the U.S. operates.
He clearly is skeptical about this.
https://thedebrief.org/closing-uap-information-gaps-to-advance-national-security-some-suggestions-for-congress-and-the-new-administration/
2025-02-05
The Mellon article is also available at his Substack account:
https://open.substack.com/pub/christopherkmellon/p/closing-uap-information-gaps-between