Scientists have finally looked closely at the ruins of the collected spacecraft from the asteroids. In it, they found new clues about the ingredients for life that were present in the early solar system and how they could come to Earth.
The International Team of Scientists has published some of their discoveries about samples Collected by NASA’s spacecraft Osiris-Rex from the asteroids rich in carbon Benna rich in carbon 2020 and returned to Earth in 2023.
Benna, an asteroid rich in carbon that orbit about 300,000 kilometers to the ground, was part of an ancestral asteroid that formed in the early solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Because of this, scientists can tell what molecules needed for life were present in the early solar system.
“This asteroid is like a frozen weather capsule,” said Kim Tait, a higher curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and co -author of a new study on its mineral composition.
Nasa spacecraft descended to an asteroid and touched the surface for a moment to collect a handful of cosmic dust. Michael Daly, a leading instrument scientist who copied the surface of the asteroid, answered some questions two special guests.
What scientists have found on an asteroid
Examining minerals from the now dry and dusty asteroids, researchers could say that his home asteroid once contained pockets or veins of salty water and that there were sodium, chlorides, fluorides, carbonate and phosphate in salt, they said on Wednesday on Wednesday Nature. Crystals seemed to form a way in which they work in salt lakes on Earth.
A separate analysis of molecules important for life was found amino acids, including 14 of 20 used to build protein in living beings. He also found all five nucleobas or construction blocks of RNA and DNA, researchers reported in Astronomy of nature.
At NASA’s press conference on Wednesday, Sara Russell, a coping author of the mineral study, said that brilliant fluids would be “full full of” elements needed for life, such as phosphorus and sulfur, and some of the salt and clay could have catalyzed reactions to create more complex molecules.
“We find this story where together, organic materials and all of these bioinsectic elements could be delivered on asteroids such as Bennu in the early solar system to Earth – and other planets – to allow them to be called with all the ingredients that were supposed to start their lives” , said Russell, a scientist at the London Natural History Museum.
Already there were evidence from meteorites and Another mission of asteroid sampling,, Japanese Space Agency Hayabusa2These space rocks can carry the water needed for life and biological construction blocks such as amino acids and nucleobase.
But Bennu’s ruin also contained surprises.
Tait said he showed that carbon -based molecules were formed in “very salty, brilliant water, which we didn’t expect at all.”
Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites in Smithsonian’s Natural Museum of Natural History and a co -lounge author of a new mineral study, said at a press conference: “We have never seen minerals in meteorites before,” although meteorites have been pieces of asteroids that fell to the ground.
He said that even small amounts of water in the Earth’s atmosphere can cause some salts to dissolve and disappear as the meteorite goes through it.
New discoveries show that missions taking samples from space, bring them back to Earth and distribute them to study scientists without exposing things such as water and oxygen, “they are absolutely necessary,” McCoy said.
The space capsule that grabbed the rare fragments from the asteroid Bennua successfully lowered to Earth on Sunday. Scientists think the asteroid might contain traces of how life on earth has been formed.
Benna crushed the theory of the origin of left amino acids
One of the other issues related to the origin of life that scientists wanted to explore with this mission was why amino acids, which can be found in chemical forms called “left” and “right hand”, are only in the left-handed form in living beings .
“It’s a great mystery. We don’t know how it happened,” Danny Glavin, the leading author Study of Astronomy of Naturehe said at a press conference.
Many meteorites similar to Bennu had more left -shaped, as scientists say that they suggest that there were more molecules of the left in the early universe.
But the amino acids collected from Bennu in left and right are about equal quantities.
“I have to admit that I was a little disappointed or disappointed,” said Glavin, an older scientist at Nas Goddard Space Flight Center. He said that for now, the origin of the left hand of amino acids on Earth “remains a mystery.”
The researchers wrote In a nature study that the conditions that had to exist on ancient asteroid that Benna from “represented an intriguing but unanimous environment” for the formation of molecules needed for life. They suggest that the experiments to see if the DNA and RNA building blocks can be formed in similar chemical conditions in the laboratory.
“We now know that we have basic construction blocks to move that path to life, but we do not know how far away these environment could make things progress,” McCoy said.
NASA spacecraft will try to take a sample from the Benna asteroid surface, and Canadian technology has made it possible to change the best place to take the sample. NASA -in asteroid landing, asteroid Benna, Canadian NASA technology, Canada asteroid, NASA asteroid probe, asteroid patterns, Canadian Space Tech, CBC, The National, Aaron Saltzman
Tait added that one of NASA’s priorities is to seek water in space because it is necessary for life.
“I discover that this is very excited by me,” she said, “and I hope other people will be very excited about the possibility of another life outside.”
Although there are signs that places like the Mars planets could once have water and hot air conditioning, Gordon Osinski, a professor at the Western University of London, Ont., Said new discoveries “could mean that … even asteroids may have conditions appropriate for life. “
There is currently no water on Benn, and a new study suggests that it has evaporated somewhere in the past.
Tait was part of a working group of scientists who met for two weeks to talk and interpret new results from analyzes of different parts of asteroid samples arranged in the laboratories around the world.
Canada was part of a team for the return of asteroids because it contributed to the instrument used to mapping asteroids to collect the sample.
Chris Herd, a professor and geologist at the University of Alberti, expects to get a Benna sample for his team that will study and be intrigued by new results soon.
“I am excited because it allows us to compare the asteroid that we have sampled with the meteorites that are already in our collections,” he said.
But Herd noted that new studies show that the sample was collected directly from asteroids and retained in controlled conditions “will reveal more information” than meteorites exposed to warm temperatures and chemicals in their atmosphere.
Osijek agreed that the exciting thing about Bennu samples was collected in space. “And they are absolutely intact …. so we know that everything was found in these patterns and it was formed either on this asteroid or outside in the solar system.”
