Pure material from the asteroid Ryugu was returned to Earth in 2020.
Asteroid dust collected by a Japanese spacecraft contains organic material, which indicates that some of the building blocks of life on Earth may have formed in space, scientists said on Friday.
Pure material from the asteroid Ryugu was returned to Earth in 2020 after a six-year mission to a celestial body about 300 million kilometers away.
But scientists are just beginning to discover its secrets in the first studies on small portions of 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces) of dust and dark, small stones.
In a document released Friday, a group of researchers led by Okayama University in western Japan said they had found “amino acids and other organic substances that could provide evidence of the origin of life on Earth.”
“The discovery of amino acids that make up proteins is important because Ryugu has not been exposed to the Earth’s biosphere as meteorites, and as such, their discovery proves that at least some of the building blocks of life on Earth could form in space. environments, “the study said.
The team said they found 23 different types of amino acids while examining a sample collected by Japan’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft in 2019.
The dust and rocks moved as the refrigerator-sized spacecraft fired an “impact device” at the asteroid.
“The Ryugu sample has the most primitive characteristics of any natural sample available to mankind, including meteorites,” said a statement from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
It is believed that some of the material was created about five million years after the birth of the solar system and was not heated above 100 degrees Celsius (210 degrees Fahrenheit).
Another study published in the US-based journal science said the material has “a chemical composition that more closely resembles the Sun’s photosphere than other natural samples.”
Kensei Kobayashi, an expert in astrobiology and an honorary professor at Yokohama National University, welcomed the discovery.
“Scientists doubt how organic matter was created or where it came from – including amino acids, and the fact that amino acids were found in the sample suggests that the amino acids were brought to Earth from space,” he told AFP.
Another basic theory about the origin of amino acids is that they were created in the Earth’s primitive atmosphere by lightning strikes, for example, after the Earth cooled.
What happened before, during and after the formation of the solar system? The study of the asteroid Ryugu contains the answers
© 2022 AFP
Citation: Asteroid samples contain “evidence of the origin of life”: Japanese scientists (2022, June 12), extracted on June 12, 2022 from
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