"The fact that terrestrial microbes are the Earth's best colonizers means we can never completely discount terrestrial ...

Right now, it's in a clean room glove box at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Once scientists are done processing the asteroid sample, engineers will be able to retrieve it. In an October ...

A recent discovery made by scientists working with a sample of rock from outer space highlights one of the huge challenges ...

The OSIRIS-REx mission returned asteroid samples, enabling a vast observation campaign that provided new insights into ...

A chunk of rock collected from the asteroid Ryugu contains bacteria—but, unfortunately, it's not evidence of alien life.

HOPES of finding traces of alien life in the universe have been scuppered yet again. And this time on asteroid Ryugu, a space ...

A Ryugu asteroid sample has been found contaminated by terrestrial microbes, raising questions about planetary protection.

Scientists have found microorganisms crawling over a sample retrieved from the 200 million-mile-distant asteroid Ryugu. But ...

Samples taken from the space-returned piece of asteroid Ryugu were collected and prepared under strict anti-contamination ...