Summary
- The NASA spacecraft brought Bennu asteroid samples to Earth in 2023.
- The first in -depth analyzes of this substance revealed organic molecules, including the daughters of life.
- The theoretical results are strengthened that the asteroids that were shattered on Earth may have given lifelong ingredients.
In samples taken from the remote asteroid, scientists have discovered a group of organic molecules, including the basic building blocks of life.
The sudden discovery indicates that the chemical components needed for life may be widespread through the early solar system.
The spacecraft in Osrice-Rix from NASA, which was launched in 2016, washed parts of dust, soil and rocks from the asteroid Benu and Then he brought them to Earth in 2023. 4.5 billion asteroids were believed to be formed in the first 10 million years of the solar system.
An analysis of these asteroids collected, published on Wednesday in Nature MagazineIt indicates that the samples included thousands of organic compounds and 14 of 20 amino acids that life uses on Earth to form proteins. Samples also contained four “nucleus” – the main components of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic plans within our cells.
The researchers did not find evidence of the same life on Bennu; Instead, their theoretical results are enhanced by the asteroids that were shattered on the ground when a young man might have handed over the ingredients needed for life. The results can also mean The chances of life formed on the planets and other satellites in the solar system can be higher than the scientists who previously believed.
“The Osiris-Rex mission is already writing the textbook on what we understand about the components that are believed to be necessary for the appearance of life in our solar system,” Nikki Fox, the assistant official of the NASA Directorate of Science Mission, said on news in one of the news. surround.
Similar organic molecules, including amino acids, have been discovered in meteorites before, but these fragments of space rocks are incomplete samples because they are studied after continuous fire trips across the Earth’s atmosphere.
While meteorites and pollution are subjected to conditions on the ground that can distort scientific results, collecting samples directly from the asteroid in space is similar to looking at a time capsule of the emerging solar system.
“What is very important about the results of Osiris-Rex Bennu is that these samples are primitive,” said Danny Ghostyin, astronomer at the Juddard Space Center in NASA.
Ghobin said that the Bennu samples carried it from the harsh conditions while re -entering the atmosphere.
He said: “The bottom line is: We have more confidence in the fact that the organic materials that we see in these samples outside the ground and not pollution.” “We can trust these results.”
In Beno samples, researchers stumbled in some surprises. On the one hand, they found exceptionally high concentrations of ammonia – “about 100 times more than the normal levels of ammonia that you find in the soil on the ground,” said Glagin.
Ammonia is an essential component of many biological processes, including as a building binding for the formation of amino acids, which in turn can be connected together in long chains to make proteins.
Another surprise It was described in a Second paper Posted on Wednesday in Nature: Researchers found traces of 11 minerals that were probably part of a concrete mixture behind it after deposits of water that evaporated Peno and the mother asteroid.
Tim McCoy, Secretary of Mebarik at the Smithsonian Natural Museum in Washington, DC, participated in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and participated in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and the author of both studies.
“We now know from Beno that the raw components of life were gathered in interesting and really complicated ways on the body of Bennu”, MCCOY He said in a statement. “We have discovered the next step on a way of life.”
The discovered minerals included sodium carbonate compounds such as Trona (sometimes referred to as “soda ashes”) that scientists said have never been observed in other samples outside the planet. Similar full mixtures are believed to be on the Encladus and DWARF PLANET CERES satellite.
The two new studies are the first in -depth analysis of Bennu samples. In 2023, scientists announced preliminary results, including the effects of carbon and water imprisoned in clay minerals.
The soil and rocks of Bennu are the first samples of NASA and returned from an asteroid, but it was not the first in history. The Japanese Hayaposa mission in 2010 was delivered to the Earth a few micrograms of materials from an asteroid called Itokawa. A second mission, called Hayabusa2, delivered a small sample of an asteroid known as Ryugu in 2020.
Although Bennu samples have already resulted in interesting results, more research is needed to understand what makes life accurately appears on one planet or one moon, not others.
“What did the people of that land did not have?” Jason Drukin, the Osiris Rex project, said at the Guudard Space Center in NASA. “This is a future field for studying for astronomers all over the world to think, and look at Pino as an example of a place that had all things but did not make life. Why was the earth private?”