Samples taken from asteroid Ryugu contain organic molecules, first study says

He asteroid ryugu contains a rich array of organic molecules, according to initial analysis of a surface sample sent to Earth by a Japanese spacecraft. hayabusa2.

The discovery lends credence to the idea that organic matter from outer space contributed to the chemical makeup of life, according to NASA, which took part in the study.

recipe for a lifetime

Organic molecules are the building blocks of all known terrestrial life and are made up of a wide variety of compounds consisting of carbon combined with atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and others. However, organic molecules can also be formed from non-life chemical reactions, supporting the hypothesis that chemical reactions in asteroids they can produce some of the ingredients of life.

The science of prebiotic chemistry is trying to discover the compounds and reactions that could give rise to life, and among the organic prebiotics found in the sample were different types of amino acids. Some amino acids are widely used by terrestrial life as building blocks for proteins. Proteins are essential to life because they are used to make enzymes that speed up or regulate chemical reactions, and to build microscopic to large structures such as hair and muscles.

The sample also contained many types of organic compounds formed in the presence of liquid water, such as aliphatic amines, carboxylic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds.

“The presence of prebiotic molecules on the surface of the asteroid, despite its harsh conditions caused by solar heating and ultraviolet radiation, as well as cosmic ray irradiation under high vacuum conditions, suggests that the uppermost surface grains ryugu have the potential to protect organic molecules,” says Hiroshi Naraoka of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. an asteroid layer from collisions or other causes.” Naraoka is the lead author of an article about this study published in the journal Science.

“At the moment amino acid results ryugu are largely consistent with what is observed in some types of carbon-rich (carbonaceous) meteorites that have been exposed to the most water in space,” says Jason Dworkin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the Green Belt. Maryland, contributor. articles.

“However, the sugars and nitrogenous bases (components of DNA and RNA) that have been found in some carbon-rich meteorites have not yet been identified in samples returned ryugu”, argues Daniel Glavin of the NASA Goddard Center and co-author of the paper. “It is possible that these compounds are present in asteroid Ryugubut below our limits of analytical detection, given the relatively small mass of sample available for study.”

unique case

Ship hayabusa2 collected samples on February 22, 2019 and sent them back to Earth on December 6, 2020. They were retrieved in Japan in July 2021 and analyzed at Goddard in autumn 2021. A very small amount of the sample (30 milligrams) was allocated to the international soluble organics analysis team. The sample was extracted (as was the tea) in many different solvents in Japan and analyzed in laboratories in Japan, Goddard and Europe using a wide range of forensic laboratories.

This work is the first organic analysis of a sample ryugu, and samples will be studied for years. “We will conduct a direct comparison of samples ryugu and a sample of the asteroid Bennu when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returns it to Earth in 2023, Dworkin said. “OSIRIS-REx is expected to return a much larger sample mass from Bennu and provide another important opportunity to search for traces of the main components of life in asteroid rich in carbon. (Europa Press)

We recommend you METADATA, an RPP technology podcast. News, analytics, reviews, recommendations and everything you need to know about the tech world.