LOS ANGELES -- Studies of the samples from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA's spacecraft have revealed that the early solar system had widespread conditions and ingredients for life, NASA said on Wednesday.

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.

Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. The picture

The building blocks of DNA have been found in samples returned to Earth from an asteroid, suggesting life rained down from space and could have formed elsewhere.

Material retrieved from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows that all the basic building blocks of life were astonishingly widespread in the early solar system