Scientists have finally looked at the ruins that were collected from an asteroid by a NASA spaceship. In it they have found new indications of the lifestyles that were present in the early solar system and how they could have come to earth.
An international team of scientists has published some of their discoveries about the rehearsals Captured by the NASA room vehicles Osiris-Rex from the almost earthy carbon-rich asteroid Bennu in 2020 And returned to earth in 2023.
Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid, which circles up to 300,000 kilometers to earth, was part of an ancestor-seedenoid that was formed about 4.5 billion years ago in the early solar system. For this reason, scientists can tell which molecules were available for life in the early solar system.
“This asteroid is like a frozen time capsule,” said Kim Tait, Senior Curator of Mineralogy in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and co-author of a new study of his mineral composition.
A NASA spaceship rose to an asteroid and touched the surface for a moment to collect a handful of cosmic dust. Michael Daly, senior scientist for the instrument that mapped the surface of the asteroid, answered some questions from two special guests.
What scientists found on the asteroid
By examining the minerals from the now dry and dusty asteroid, the researchers could see that his parents once contained pockets or veins from salty water and that there was sodium, chloride, fluorides, carbonates and phosphates in salt, they reported on Wednesday in Nature. The crystals seemed to form as they do in salt lakes on earth.
A separate analysis of molecules that are important for life resulted in amino acids, including 14 of the 20, which were used to build protein in living beings. It also found all five nucleico or building blocks from RNA and DNA, as the researchers reported Natural astronomy.
At a NASA press conference on Wednesday, Sara Russell, co-Leutor of the mineral study, said that salt fluids were “full” of elements that are necessary for life, such as phosphorus and sulfur, and some of the salts and tones were able to react catalyzed reactions to to create more complex molecules.
“We find this story in which the water, organic materials and all these biological elements on asteroids such as Bennu can be delivered to Earth – and other planets – in the early solar system so that they can be sown with all the ingredients that They had to start life, ”said Russell, research scientist in the Natural History Museum in London.
There has already been evidence of Meteorites And Another asteroid sampling mission missionPresent Hayabusa2 of the Japanese space agencyThat room rocks can carry water that is necessary for life and biological building blocks such as amino acids and nucleobases.
But Bennus also contained surprises.
Tait said it showed that molecules on a carbon basis formed in “very salty, salty water that we did not expect at all”.
Tim McCoy, curator of the meteorites in the Natural History Museum of Natural History and the co-lead author of the new mineral study, said the press conference: “We have never seen minerals in meteorite”, although meteorite pieces are asteroids that fall on earth are.
He said that even tiny amounts of water in the earth’s atmosphere can cause some salts to dissolve and disappear when a meteorite goes through them.
The new discoveries show how missions that take rehearsals out of space, give them back to earth and spread them so that scientists are examined by scientists without water such as water and oxygen being “absolutely essential”, said McCoy.
A space capsule that got rare fragments from the asteroid Bennu was successfully returned to earth on Sunday. Scientists believe that the asteroid could contain indications of how life was formed on earth.
Bennu crushes the theory about the origin of left -handed amino acids
One of the other questions in connection with the origin of life that scientists wanted to research with this mission was why amino acids, which can be referred to in chemical forms as “left -handers” and “right -handed”, are only found on the left. House shape in living beings.
“It’s a big mystery. We don’t know how it happened,” said Danny Glavin, leading author of Nature Astronomy Study, the press conference.
Many meteorites, similar to Bennu, had more left -handed form, which suggested scientists that there were more left -handed molecules in the early universe.
However, the amino acids collected from Bennu are located in approximately the same quantities in both left -handed and right -handed forms.
“I have to admit that I was a little disillusioned or disappointed,” said Glavin, senior scientist from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. For the time being, he said that the origin of the left -handers of amino acids on earth remains a mystery.
The researchers wrote In the natural study that the conditions that must have existed on the old asteroid that Bennu is “a fascinating but undestected environment” in order to form molecules that are necessary for life. They propose to carry out experiments to determine whether the building blocks of DNA and RNA can form in the laboratory under similar chemical conditions.
“We now know that we have the basic building blocks to move this way to life, but we don’t know how far this way could make this environment possible,” said McCoy.
A NASA spaceship will try to take a sample from the surface of asteroid Bennu, and Canadian technology made it possible to map the best place to record the sample. NASA Asteroid landing, asteroid Bennu, Canadian Tech Nasa, Canada Asteroid, NASA -SASTERODEDE, Asteroid samples, Canadian Space Tech, CBC, the National, Aaron Salzman
Tait added that one of NASA’s priorities was to look for water in space because it is necessary for life.
“I think that was very excited,” she said, “and I hope that other people really excited about the possibilities of another life out there.”
While there are signs that places like the planet Mars once had water and a warmer climate, Gordon Osinski, professor at Western University in London, said ontario the conditions suitable for life. “
There is currently no water on Bennu, and the new study suggests that it has evaporated in the past at some point.
Tait was part of a working group of scientists who met two weekly to discuss and interpret the new results from analyzes of various parts of the asteroid sample that were distributed on laboratories around the world.
Canada was part of the team for the Asteroid Return mission because they contributed to an instrument with which the asteroid was mapped to collect the sample.
Chris Herd, professor and geologist at the University of Alberta, expected to get a Bennu sample for his team for studying and is fascinated by the new results.
“I am excited because it enables us to compare the asteroid that we have tried with meteorites that are already in our collections,” he said.
However, herd found that the new studies show that a sample that is collected directly from an asteroid and held under controlled conditions “show more information” than meteorites that are exposed to the warm temperatures and chemicals of the earth in its atmosphere.
Osinski agreed that the exciting thing about Bennu’s samples is that they were collected in space. “And they are absolutely flawless … so we know that everything that was found in these samples was formed from this asteroid or out there in the solar system.”
