What Asteroid Bennu Reveals About the Origins of Life on Earth Asteroid Bennu has been hurtling through space for approximately 4. 5 billion years, its surface etched with secrets from a bygone era.
Composed primarily of carbonaceous chondrite material, Bennu is thought to have formed from the remnants of the solar nebula, the cloud of gas and dust that surrounded our sun during its early days.
This process would have occurred when temperatures were still soaring, with particles colliding at speeds exceeding 50 kilometers per second.