Building Blocks Of Life Found On Asteroid Bennu
Science Friday4 Feb 2025

Building Blocks Of Life Found On Asteroid Bennu

About four and a half years ago, a spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx touched down on the surface of an asteroid called Bennu. It drilled down and scooped up samples of rock and dust and, after several years of travel, delivered those samples back to Earth.

Since then, researchers around the world have been analyzing tiny bits of that asteroid dust, trying to tease out as much information as they can about what Bennu is like and where it might have come from. Two scientific papers published this week give some of the results of those experiments. Researchers found minerals that could have arisen from the drying of an icy brine, and a soup of organic molecules, including ammonia and 14 of the 20 amino acids necessary for life on Earth.

Dr. Danny Glavin and Dr. Dante Lauretta join Flora Lichtman to talk about the samples, what their analysis is revealing, and what those findings could mean for the hunt for life elsewhere in the solar system.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1381)

What can moments of lucidity teach us about Alzheimer’s?

What can moments of lucidity teach us about Alzheimer’s?

Watching a loved one with Alzheimer's or dementia slowly lose their cognitive abilities can be heartbreaking. While the person you once knew seems to be slipping away, sometimes people with Alzheimer'...

18 Aug 17min

Colorado’s snow drought deals a major blow to recreation

Colorado’s snow drought deals a major blow to recreation

Winter in Colorado looked very different this year. Many parts of the state experienced record-high temperatures and record-low snowpack, which had downstream effects on farming, sports, tourism, and ...

17 Aug 11min

How do you find a ‘lost’ species?

How do you find a ‘lost’ species?

The earth is facing a biodiversity crisis, and there’s a lot of attention on species that are threatened, or at risk of dying out completely. But, there’s another critter category that’s a little more...

14 Aug 18min

What we get wrong about vaccine hesitancy

What we get wrong about vaccine hesitancy

President Trump has signed an executive order calling for a change to the childhood vaccination schedule. Specifically, he wants to separate the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and...

13 Aug 12min

Why this lab studies the speed of bug pee and other curiosities

Why this lab studies the speed of bug pee and other curiosities

In a lab in the Rocky Mountains, a group of scientists is hard at work trying to find answers across biology, physics, and engineering: They’re looking into things like the hydrodynamics of insect pee...

12 Aug 18min

Some primates undergo even more extreme childbirth than humans

Some primates undergo even more extreme childbirth than humans

Human childbirth is often difficult and incredibly painful—just ask anyone who’s been through it. And for a long time, childbirth seemed to be uniquely difficult for humans. But a new study suggests t...

11 Aug 11min

Deb Haaland is a politician, and proud of it

Deb Haaland is a politician, and proud of it

Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, was the first Native person to hold a cabinet position. Now she’s running to be governor of New Mexico.  Haaland joins Host ...

10 Aug 17min

Sitting all day is terrible for us. Moving a little can help

Sitting all day is terrible for us. Moving a little can help

Keeping your butt in a seat for hours a day increases the risk of heart attacks, diabetes, psychiatric conditions, and more. But in our tech-filled world, many of us lead sedentary lives, whether beca...

7 Aug 18min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
tingenes-tilstand
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
romkapsel
jss
villmarksliv
rekommandert
liberal-halvtime
rss-paradigmepodden
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
dekodet-2
sinnsyn
fjellsportpodden
vett-og-vitenskap-med-gaute-einevoll
abels-tarn
rss-rekommandert
rss-overskuddsliv
diagnose
nordnorsk-historie
rss-lundqvist-podden