Finding essential elements for life in samples from an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth
Japanese scientists have discovered that an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth contains the basic building blocks of life.
More than 20 types of amino acids were discovered in samples collected by the asteroid Ryugu by the Tokyo Hayabusa2 probe in 2018 and 2019.
Experts previously said the samples are "the most primitive material in the solar system we've ever studied."
They have analyzed 5.4 grams of rocky grains from Ryugu since samples were returned to Earth in December 2020. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins that organisms produce based on their DNA code, so they could be a key sign of alien life on other planets.
However, although they are the organic compounds that make up life as we know it, they are not necessarily the remains of ancient organisms per se.
Protein-forming chemicals can also be formed by natural geological processes — for example, those that shaped the solar system.
He earlier reported at the Planetary and Lunar Science Conference in Texas in March that he had found 10 types of amino acids, including glycine and alanine, according to scientists who detailed two papers on the discovery.
"We detected many prebiotic organic compounds in the samples, including proteinogenic amino acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons similar to ground petroleum, and various nitrogen compounds," said Hiroshi Naraoka, of Kyushu University in Japan, who led the research team.
These prebiotic organic molecules can be scattered throughout the solar system, and are likely to form interplanetary dust from the surface of Ryugu by impact or other causes.
The data also indicated that Ryugu could be the remnant of an extinct comet that spent tens of thousands of years racing across the solar system.
Scientists believe that it then evaporated due to the high temperatures and turned into an asteroid from the rubble pile after moving to the inner asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
Samples of the diamond-shaped space rock with a diameter of half a mile have been returned to Earth for study by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The information showed that Ryugu is an asteroid consisting of a pile of rubble made of small pieces of rock and solid matter lumped together by gravity, not a single monolithic rock.
Second, it's spinning top - likely caused by rapid spin deformation, say researchers in Japan - and it also has a remarkably high content of organic matter.
It is this latest discovery that raises the question about the origin of the asteroid. The current scientific consensus is that Ryugu originated from debris left by the collision of two larger asteroids.
But this could not be true if the asteroid had a high organic content because the material would have decomposed or destroyed due to the high temperatures of the collision.
Scientists hope to confirm this level of organic matter once analysis of the returned samples is complete.
Ryugu is a near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid with a diameter of about 3,000 feet and located in an orbit between Earth and Mars.
Previous tests have already shown that the space rocks contain some of the "most primitive materials" ever examined, which scientists said could solve the mystery of how the solar system formed.
Experts from the University of Queensland in Australia said the samples were among the darkest materials ever examined, reflecting only 2% of the light hitting them.
It's also very porous, the team said, and could hold the key to understanding how the building blocks of life arrived on Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
Source: Daily Mail
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