NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has found signs of water on a nearby asteroid just days after it landed on the mysterious space rock.

Bennu, an asteroid that sits 72,000 miles from Earth, is billions of years old, and scientists hope to uncover how life formed on Earth by studying the rock's chemical makeup.

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Asteroids are thought to have carried the key building blocks of life - including water - to our planet's surface billions of years ago.

OSIRIS-Rex is shorthand for Nasa's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer.

The space probe arrived at Bennu on December 3, and as well as studying the rock's surface will make sure it isn't on a deadly collision course with Earth.

Having landed on the space rock just last week, Nasa scientists said OSIRIS's first find shows the asteroid is teeming with potential for groundbreaking discoveries.

“It’s one of the things we were hoping to find,” team member Amy Simon, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said.

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“This is evidence of liquid water in Bennu’s past. This is really big news.”

OSIRIS-REx is currently floating about 12 miles from Bennu, with three of its instruments pointed straight at the space rock.

By measuring light reflected off the asteroid, Nasa was able to work out part of its chemical makeup, finding signs of chemically bonded oxygen and hydrogen - the building blocks of water.

The 500-metre-wide asteroid is a small fragment of a much larger space rock, which likely broke apart billions of years ago.

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Nasa said Bennu itself is too small to have ever had water at its surface, but the find may reveal its parent space rock housed liquid water.

Scientists believe that asteroids brought water and other chemicals needed for life to Earth billions of years ago, triggering a chain of events that led to life as we know it today.

OSIRIS-REx will investigate Bennu for nearly two years, eventually touching down on the space rock and collecting a sample to return to Earth.

"When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system," Dr Simon said.

"We're really trying to understand the role that these carbon-rich asteroids played in delivering water to the early Earth and making it habitable," Dr Lauretta added.

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The probe is now surveying the asteroid to choose an orbital path, a journey it should begin on December 31.

Its instruments will investigate what asteroids are made up of, while also tracking Bennu's motion to make sure it doesn't pose a threat to Earth.

Bennu is thought to be billions of years old, and once formed part of the early solar system, long before the planets as we know them had formed.

Its surface is a mix of very rocky, boulder-filled regions and a few relatively smooth areas that lack boulders.

What do you think scientists might find on Bennu? Let us know in the comments!

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