Credit: NASA "We're seeing minerals in Bennu samples that we have never seen before in a meteorite or any extraterrestrial ...

This was the first U.S. asteroid sample return ... examined similar minerals in the museum’s collection and consulted with colleagues studying other Bennu samples. This collaborative effort ...

Tantalizing evidence in the Bennu sample suggests that the asteroid contains constituents of the “primordial soup” that scientists believe likely led to life emerging on Earth. But that’s ...

Professor Sara Russell, a cosmic mineralogist at the Natural History Museum in London and the ... discovered 11 different minerals in the sample from Bennu, including calcite, halite and sylvite.

A sample fresh from an asteroid avoids this fate, allowing scientists to study its unaltered chemistry. Bennu isn’t just a carbonaceous asteroid, but one that is surprisingly close-by.

London’s Natural History Museum and Universities across the world. Professor Jones added: “These results were only possible because of the extremely careful curation of the Bennu sample from the ...