New research suggests that amino acids, the fundamental components of life, may have arrived on Earth carried by interstellar ...

The flowing of molten rocks through small cracks in the heart of volcanoes may have been a perfect environment to forge the building blocks of life on Earth. These chemicals—called biopolymers—are an ...

Aslunar exploration intensifies, the potential for contamination of the Moon’s surface by spacecraft exhaust has become a ...

This is a colored view of the C-type asteroid 162173 Ryugu, seen by the ONC-T camera on board of Hayabusa2. Filters: vwx date:2018-07-12 08:01 Image level: 2b (Images after hardware correction and ...

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have made a groundbreaking discovery about how dust forms in some of the ...

Sending a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid, gathering dust and rock from its surface, and returning the rare cache to our planet has been one of NASA’s boldest feats yet. And now, the daring OSIRIS ...

Scientists have discovered the building blocks of life in samples retrieved from a distant asteroid. In January 2025, scientists announced the discovery of organic molecules— the building blocks of ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rock and dust samples retrieved by NASA from the asteroid Bennu exhibit some of the chemical building blocks of life, according to research that provides some of the best ...

Two papers published at the end of January in Nature and Nature Astronomy provide evidence about the origin of life. The analyses and inferences from their results affect the disciplines of biology, ...

MIT researchers have found that amino acids — major building blocks for life on Earth — are stable in highly concentrated sulfuric acid. Their results support the idea that these same molecules may be ...

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Sending a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid, gathering dust ...