NASA asteroid sample contains life-critical water and carbon

A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space.

New study reveals evidence of diverse organic material on Mars

A new study featuring data from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover reports on an instrumental detection potentially consistent with organic molecules on the Martian surface, hinting toward past habitability of the Red Planet. ...

Webb makes first detection of crucial carbon molecule

A team of international scientists has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect a new carbon compound in space for the first time. Known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on) (CH3+), the molecule is important because ...

RNA molecule uracil found in asteroid Ryugu samples

Researchers have analyzed samples of the asteroid Ryugu collected by the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft and found uracil, one of the informational units that make up RNA, the molecules that contain the instructions ...

First look at Ryugu asteroid sample reveals it is organic-rich

Asteroid Ryugu has a rich complement of organic molecules, according to a NASA and international team's initial analysis of a sample from the asteroid's surface delivered to Earth by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The discovery ...

page 2 from 40