NASA grabbed a whopping 120 grams of rubble from asteroid Bennu, and it may contain the seeds of life

[admin]

NASA's final tally shows that OSIRIS-REx collected roughly 4 ounces of material from asteroid Bennu. The sample collected from the "potentially hazardous" asteroid is thought to contain some of the earliest precursors for life.

NASA grabbed a whopping 120 grams of rubble from asteroid Bennu, and it may contain the seeds of life : Read more

 

[Ratwrangler]

Just because they found a couple of compounds commonly called "organic" does not mean that life ever existed at or around this chunk of rock. These compounds are naturally occurring under many conditions, and we have yet to witness any actually forming a lifeform of any kind. As far as we know, that experiment was successful once in the entire history of our planet.

 

[ManicSidski]

Just because they found a couple of compounds commonly called "organic" does not mean that life ever existed at or around this chunk of rock. These compounds are naturally occurring under many conditions, and we have yet to witness any actually forming a lifeform of any kind. As far as we know, that experiment was successful once in the entire history of our planet.

I agree it doesn't prove anything about life existing on this lump of rock, BUT it does go a way towards supporting one of the hypothesis I have always liked and that is the one of Panspermia. I have always believed it made sense that the building blocks of life are right there in the universe and under the right circumstances a comet/ asteroid or whatever crashing into a planet within the goldilocks zone (or maybe even in areas we don't expect life) could quite easily be the catalyst for life to form on that planet. I do feel we are at the very early stages of understanding the universe, but I still feel that with the knowledge we have of the universe as limited as it is, we can draw a pretty credible case for this, being the most likely scenario of how life is seeded across the universe (and probably very similar to ours on Earth, but not a given). And even though life has not been found yet, it's only a matter of time before it is. Enceladus and Europa are possibly the most likely to have life on them now, at least in our solar system.