Researchers Discover Building Blocks for Life on Asteroid

Catholic University researchers made significant contributions to the recent discovery of the fundamental building blocks for life, as part of a team analyzing rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu that was retrieved from space by NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission. 

One of the most important findings, as detailed in the Nature Astronomy paper, was 14 of 20 amino acids and all five nucleobases used for genetic code — a “prebiotic soup” that is essential to the recipe to life as we know it. This is not evidence of extraterrestrial life but does show its key ingredients exist beyond Earth, forming the foundation for new insights into our origins. 

University-affiliated researcher Hannah McLain played a prominent role in the research by creating controls to prevent contamination, preparing the samples for study, and analyzing the data in collaboration with the OSIRIS-Rex team of scientists across the world. 

Such evidence has been found on other extraterrestrial rocks before, but these fragile molecules can be easily changed or destroyed when they enter Earth’s atmosphere on meteorites. This makes the retrieval of a pristine specimen of such unprecedented quality from space a significant step forward for science. 

“This pristine sample sets a new science baseline for extraterrestrial analyses,” said McLain from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she conducts research at the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory. 

“There’s going to be science that comes out about the OSIRIS REx sample for many years… There are many different stones of interest that we're looking at and each one has different characteristics. I’m getting a more complete story every time I look at a new OSIRIS-REx sample.”

Current University research associates Angela Chung, Danielle Simkus, and three former employees — Jose Aponte, Heather Graham, and Frederic Seguin — were among the global team that contributed to the study. 

The Catholic University of America is a center for space science with a close collaboration with NASA. The University leads the $64 million Partnership for Heliophysics and Space Environment Research (PHaSER) and is a member of Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology II (CRESST II) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 

NASA Goddard managed the OSIRIS-REx mission with partners and collaborators, including Lockheed Martin, KinetX Aerospace, Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).