It was left The famous stuck screw In the Bennu Asteroid sampling container. NASA scientists have just published the results of their analysis and are as exciting as the asteroid of 4.5 billion years promised.
Osiris-Rex and Asteroid Bennu. Threw in 2016, Osiris-Rex completed one of NASA’s most ambitious missions in recent years. The probe reached an asteroid near the land called Bennu in 2018. He spent several months by making it and analyzing it closely and, finally, descended to touch its surface.
Osiris-Rex collected 121.6 grams of Bennu samples in 2020. He then undertook his return trip and, in September 2023, managed to release them successfully on Earth. Is less than expected And, yet, the greatest number of samples brought from another celestial body other than the moon. In addition to a true time capsule due to the age of the asteroid: 4.5 billion years, almost as many as those that the solar system has.
What is in Bennu’s samples. Two studies published on Tuesday in Nature and Nature Astronomy They detail the results of the analysis. We can say that the wait has been worth it because those 121.6 grams that Osiris-Rex brought from asteroid bennu They contain essential molecules for lifeas well as the trail of a salty environment that could promote its formation:
- Amino acids and nucleobases. 14 of the 20 amino acids used by living beings to make proteins, and the five nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA, the genetic codification of life on earth
- Ammonia and formaldehyde. Ammonia is essential in chemical reactions that generate complex molecules, and formaldehyde can lead to amino acids when combined with ammoniac
- Salts and salt water. Minerals formed by the evaporation of water with brine, an environment that could be the ideal broth for prebiotic chemistry in the body from which Bennu comes
What this finding means. The discovery of all these molecules reinforces the hypothesis that the basic ingredients for life could have spread throughout the solar system at an early age. It is known that the asteroids brought water to the earth, and nothing prevents They will also deliver other essential blocks for life or microbial life itself. Perhaps the conducive conditions for life in many other parts of the solar system will be given.
The material from Bennu contains a combination of salts (calcite, halita, trona and silvita) that had only been seen incompletely in some meteorites. It is a clue that the body from which Bennu comes originally Water could contain with the necessary conditions for the development of organic compounds.
What this finding does not mean. That the “father” of Asteroid Bennu could have the necessary conditions for life forms to arise does not mean that scientists have discovered life in a body outside the earth. Samples do not contain evidence of living organisms, nor do they confirm in any way the existence of extraterrestrial life.
The material, which was formed in a cold region of the solar system beyond Jupiter’s orbit, does not end up solving, but throws some light on the big question: if there are scenarios conducive to life beyond the earth. And no, samples do not have land pollution, as happened with those of the asteroid Ryugu that the Japanese brought in the Hayabusa mission 2.
To other asteroids. The laboratories of the Earth are for now the best we have, so none of this would have been possible without a complex sampling recovery mission. Osiris-Rex is the third, after the Japanese Missions Hayabusa. Soon we will see also Tianwen-2, the Chinese mission that will travel to the asteroid 2016 HO3 KAMOʻOALEWA.
Images | POT
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings