Scientists from NASA and other institutions who analyzed a sample of the asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth last September made an interesting and important discovery. They found molecules, including amino acids, that are essential ingredients of life as we know it. The sample also contained «evidence of an ancient environment well suited to run the chemistry of life», NASA said in a press release.
The results of the study do not confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life, but confirm that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were widespread in the early solar system». They also support theories that the amino acids necessary for life to exist on Earth originated elsewhere, «increasing the chances that life could have formed on other planets and satellites».
The study, published in Nature Astronomy by NASA scientists, found that the Bennu asteroid sample contains 14 of the 20 amino acids used to make proteins in living organisms on Earth, including five nucleobases needed to create DNA and RNA. The NASA team also found large amounts of ammonia and formaldehyde, which under certain conditions react with each other to form complex molecules such as amino acids.
The article reveals evidence that these conditions could have occurred. Scientists from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and the Natural History Museum in London found traces of 11 minerals, including calcite, halite, and sylvite, indicating the presence of salt water on the larger 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid from which Bennu originated, which may have helped the ingredients of life interact and combine.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was launched September 8, 2016. In two years, the probe, which has traveled 6.2 billion kilometers, eventually reached the asteroidandcarried out soil sampling, starting the long journey home. This sample was successfully received on September 24, 2023.
Source: The Verge
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