Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA -- its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very small handful of space …
New Findings Suggest the Building Blocks For Life’s Genetic Structure May Well Have Arrived From Above
All of life, from simplest to most complex, contains five information-passing compounds that allow the genetic code to work. These nitrogen-based compounds, called nucleobases, are found in all the the DNA and RNA that provide the instructions to build and operate every living thing on Earth. How these compounds are formed, or where they come …
OSIRIS-REx Scoops The Surface of the Asteroid Bennu!
Surprising Insights Into the Asteroid Bennu’s Past, as OSIRIS-REx Prepares For a Sample-Collecting “Tag”
Long before there was an Earth, asteroids large and small were orbiting our young sun. Among them was one far enough out from the sun to contain water ice, as well as organic compounds with lots of carbon. In its five billion years or so as an object, the asteroid was hit and broken apart …
Ceres, Asteroids And Us
For most of us, asteroids exist primarily as a threat. An asteroid that landed around the Yucatan peninsula, after all, is generally considered to have set into motion the changes that resulted in the elimination of the dinosaurs. Other large in-coming asteroids laid waste to swaths of Siberia in 1908, dug the world's largest crater …
Ceres, Asteroids And Us
For most of us, asteroids exist primarily as a threat. An asteroid that landed around the Yucatan peninsula, after all, is generally considered to have set into motion the changes that resulted in the elimination of the dinosaurs. Other large in-coming asteroids laid waste to swaths of Siberia in 1908, dug the world's largest crater …
Many Worlds 