Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way

By: Amirali Aghazadeh, Georgia Institute of Technology, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: December 12, 2025

Words: 1,309

Last Updated: 4 weeks, 2 days ago

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By Amirali Aghazadeh, Georgia Institute of Technology

When NASA scientists opened the sample return canister from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample mission in late 2023, they found something astonishing.

Dust and rock collected from the asteroid Bennu contained many of life’s building blocks, including all five nucleobases used in DNA and RNA, 14 of the 20 amino acids found in proteins, and a rich collection of other organic molecules. These are built primarily from …

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