Rock and dust samples from the Bennu asteroid contain molecules that are the "key to life" on Earth, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.
"NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions," Cheryl Warner, NASA's news chief at the agency's headquarters, said in a statement to reporters.
Scientists from NASA and other institutions who have been analyzing the Bennu asteroid sample that returned to Earth last September found molecules, including amino acids, which are essential ingredients of life as we know it.
Last year, 2024, was the warmest year on record for the planet, easily breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.
NASA OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return team has revealed exciting evidence of the precursors of life in the pieces of space rock Bennu.
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.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night he had asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, who were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March.
Molecules friendly to life have been found in samples of the asteroid Bennu, which NASA collected with a robotic probe five years ago.
The discovery is a capstone achievement for NASA, which went to great lengths to secure and deliver asteroid samples from asteroid Bennu in 2020.
In the three years before the deadly collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight near Reagan National Airport, at least two other pilots reported near-misses with helicopters while landing at the airport,