The Asteroid 101955 Bennu appears in this mosaic of images captured by the Osiris-Rex space vehicle. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The Osiris-Rex space vehicle returned triumphantly to Earth in 2023 after collecting 4.3 ounces (121.6 grams) of precious grains of dust and rock with asteroid Bennu in 2020. While that return of the sample was an incredible feat of Engineering, his arrival on earth was only only the beginning of the scientific adventure.
On January 29, NASA held a press conference to announce the results of two teams that study Bennu’s champions. Detailed in two Nature The articles were released on the same day, the cereals reveal that Bennu had a wealth of amino acids, including 14 of the 20 that make up biological proteins, the material that constitutes living beings. While none of these discoveries counts as a life itself, are the molecules that life uses to build itself. Their existence strongly strengthens the theory according to which these materials were delivered on earth by asteroids such as Bennu.
Scientists also revealed the discovery of clay and salami, substances that occur only with the slow evaporation of the water. This informs the history of water in the sun system, and in particular the interaction of water and the molecules necessary for life.
Nicky Fox, associated administrator of the management of the scientific mission at the NASA headquarters, said in a press release that “asteroids provide a time of time in the history of our domestic planet and Bennu’s champions are fundamental in our understanding of which ingredients in the Our sun system existed first life started on earth. “
A prelude to life
Bennu, like other asteroids, provides a window on the first sun system. For scientists, these spatial rocks are uncontaminated environments, not touched by the complicated cycles of time, water, rock and more that take place on planets and moons. They can reveal the materials present in the first days of the Solar System and a simplified story of how those materials have become.
In addition to the 14 biological amino acids, the Bennu samples also contained 19 other non -biological amino acids, as well as the five nucleobases that make up the RNA and DNA. The team also found a surprising amount of ammonia, which reacts with formaldehyde, also present on Bennu, to create many amino acids, giving an orderly image of how the abundance of materials was born. The richness of complex chemistry, including the chemical components necessary for life, make Bennu champions a powerful tool to study how life was born.
“Osiride-Rex data add important brushstrokes to an image of a sunburo system that teems with life potential,” said Dworkin. “Because so far we only see life on earth and not elsewhere – this is the really tempting question.”
Another great discovery from Bennu’s champions have been brincalal materials that are formed as the water evaporates. Asteroids like Bennu’s parent body probably formed directly from the accumulation of frozen rocks. At a certain point, that ice must have dissolved, since the water is necessary to form many of the materials found on Bennu. But the brine shows that the water has also been evaporated. Perhaps against that, this loss of water was also important: it was only when the water disappeared that part of the chemistry became possible to create the materials that one day could be incorporated by life.
A careful investigation
None of these analyzes would have been possible without a mission of performance of the samples or if the samples had been compromised. Osiris-Rex had the demanding task of removing the champions from Bennu and transporting them to Earth. But scientists had a different but equally demanding task once they arrived: do not let the Earth’s atmosphere influence the capsule of the spatial rock time.
Tim McCoy, curator of Meteorites at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC, and the main author of one of the Nature The articles released today stressed that, especially when they study the history of water, any contamination of water vapor would have made their studies impossible. The history of water in the sun system is known only due to the careful care of the asteroid champions.
The samples were removed from the spatial vehicle’s return group in a clean gloves, without exposure to the external air. The sample container was pumped full of nitrogen, an inert gas. The samples are now divided between a series of institutions, in part to recognize the international effort that has gone on a mission and in part so that no single accident can destroy all samples.
Apollo’s lunar missions have also returned a wealth of champions. Thanks to their careful conservation, scientists are still able to experiment with lunar champions, despite over 50 years from the end of Apollo.
Jason Dworkin, a scientist of the Osiris-Rex project, stressed that most Bennu’s champion are still unexplored. With the same careful care of Apollo’s champions, scientists will be able to discover new discoveries for the decades to come.
“The clues we are looking for are so tiny and so easily destroyed or modified by exposure to the terrestrial environment,” said Danny Glavin, one of the co -authors. “That’s why some of these new discoveries would not be possible without a sample performance mission, meticulous measures to control contamination and careful care and conservation of this precious Bennu material.”
Life for Mancini
For every great scientific discovery not only answers arrive, but more questions. One of the greatest questions offered by Bennu’s champions involves the “hand” of the molecules. Many molecules are chirals, which means that their shape can take one of the two mirror shapes, for left -handed or dextimans. Life as we know it greatly prefers the molecules for Mancini and has evolved to use and produce them. Scientists do not know why, but they postulate that excessive abundance of molecules for Mancini on early earth may have given rise to this preference.
But Bennu’s champions had an equal abundance of molecules for Mancini and right. If Bennu is truly representative of asteroids that have freed the ingredients for life, then the question of why life prefers Mancini is still a mystery.
