A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world.

This mineral-rich asteroid might have carried the seeds of life. Planetary scientists have discovered organic matter essential to life in dust and rock retrieved from an asteroid known as Bennu. The finding supports the theory that near-Earth asteroids,

The pristine nature of the Bennu samples is crucial. Daniel Glavin of NASA noted, “The clues we’re finding are incredibly fragile and could never survive Earth’s contamination.” This ensures that the organic molecules detected are genuinely extraterrestrial, not contaminants from Earth.