NASA is getting ready to land on an asteroid that may hold the building blocks of lif

[Peter1469]

NASA is getting ready to land on an asteroid that may hold the building blocks of life

Carbon bearing organic material on the asteroid. Well some say life on earth was seeded via asteroid strikes.

With NASA getting ready to land a spacecraft on the asteroid Bennu in just a few short days, the mysterious space rock is already revealing some of its secrets, including the presence of carbon-bearing materials.

Several studies were published on the matter in the journals Science and Science Advances, noting that carbon-bearing, organic material is "widespread" on the surface of the asteroid. This includes the area where NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will take its first sample from, known as Nightingale, on Oct. 20.


“The abundance of carbon-bearing material is a major scientific triumph for the mission. We are now optimistic that we will collect and return a sample with organic material – a central goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, in a statement.

Read the rest of the article at the link.

[CCitizen]

Hopefully they will not bring any bacteria back to Earth.

[Peter1469]

Hopefully they will not bring any bacteria back to Earth.

The US government has an agency that handles that. I guess we will have to wait to see if it works.

[RMNIXON]

Hopefully they will not bring any bacteria back to Earth.

I would imagine every strict quarantine rules will apply.

The 70's movie (and book) "The Andromeda Strain" was based on real possible scenarios!

[Lummy]

Just because you have sand in your shoe doesn't mean there's a beach outside.

[donttread]

Hopefully they will not bring any bacteria back to Earth.

Yes, when it comes to finding alien life the term " be careful what you wish" needs to be taken into account.

[Cotton1]

I would imagine every strict quarantine rules will apply.

The 70's movie (and book) "The Andromeda Strain" was based on real possible scenarios!

I love that movie

[Calypso Jones]

LOL Hasn't Bruce Willis already done this?

[barb012]

Science has already determined that the single cell organism did not originate on planet earth.