NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission successfully returned a generous chunk of the asteroid Bennu to Earth in 2023, and scientists have been analyzing it ever since. International scientific teams have published a pair of studies this week highlighting the incredible assortment of materials found in the sample.

When asteroids like Bennu hit the young Earth, they could have provided a complete package of complex molecules and the ingredients essential to life, such as water, phosphate, and ammonia. Together, these components could have seeded Earth’s initially barren landscape to produce a habitable world.

Researchers say the asteroid Bennu has the building blocks for life on it. The samples collected and returned to Earth were part of the University of Arizona-led OSIRS-REx mission.

There’s certainly nothing living on the asteroid Bennu, an airless, 1,614-ft. rubble pile orbiting the sun about 40.2 million miles from Earth. But that doesn’t mean that Bennu hasn’t all at once become one of the most biologically interesting objects in the solar system.

Scientists reported this week that asteroid samples taken from a distant asteroid known as Bennu were found to contain key organic molecules necessary to sustain life. CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood has more.