TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency spacecraft (JAXA), Hayabusa2has collected samples from Asteroid Ryuguwhich is located about 347 million kilometers from Earth, in February 2019. The sample was then returned to Earth in December 2020, and extracted in Japan in 2021.
A small amount, 30 milligrams or about 0.001 ounces of the sample, was analyzed by the international dissolved organic analysis team at NASA Goddard in the fall of that year. Preliminary results on the samples seem to support the theory that elements vital to life such as amino acids could have been sent from outer space.
The Ryugu asteroid is apparently rich in organic molecules that can serve as the building blocks of life. The discovery came when scientists first saw samples collected by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft from the asteroid.
The Ryugu sample contained several so-called “prebiotic organics”, including several types of amino acids used by living things to build proteins essential for regulating chemical reactions and building structures such as hair and muscles. These molecules can also be made by various nonliving processes, such as the chemical reactions that occur in asteroids.
Material samples collected from the Ryugu Asteroid. (Image credit: JAXA)
The findings add credibility to the theory that the basic materials needed to initiate the development of life on Earth could have been delivered to this planet in its infancy from outer space.
“The presence of prebiotic molecules on the asteroid surface, despite the harsh environment caused by solar heating and ultraviolet irradiation, as well as cosmic ray irradiation under high vacuum conditions indicates that the upper surface grains of Ryugu have the potential to protect organic molecules,” said the lead author of the study from Kyushu University, Hiroshi Naraoka.
“These molecules could be transported throughout the solar system, potentially dispersing as interplanetary dust particles after being ejected from the asteroid’s uppermost layers due to impact or other causes,” Naraoka
The term organic molecule describes a variety of compounds that contain the element carbon plus hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and other atoms and are a necessary set of all life forms on Earth.
These compounds can be created through chemical reactions that do not involve living things, meaning that chemical processes within asteroids can create materials for life. The search for chemical processes that could lead to the emergence of life on Earth is known as “prebiotic chemistry”.
In addition, Ryugu samples also found organic prebiotic molecules formed in the presence of liquid water, other essential ingredients for life, such as aliphatic amines, carboxylic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds.
“So far, the amino acid results from Ryugu are largely consistent with what has been seen in certain types of carbon-rich meteorites that have been exposed to the most water in space,” said study co-author and NASA Goddard Space Flight Scientist Jason Dworkin.
Something was missing from the Ryugu samples namely sugar and components of DNA and RNA that have been found in other carbon-rich asteroids. The team suspects it is possible that this compound is present in Ryugu but is well below the detection limit given the small mass of the sample to examine for this study.
This new research is the first organic analysis of Ryugu samples that will be studied for years to come. This future investigation will include a comparison of the Ryugu sample with samples from the asteroid Bennu collected in 2020.
“We will be conducting direct comparisons of samples from Ryugu and samples from the asteroid Bennu when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returns it to Earth in 2023,” said Dworkin. “OSIRIS-REx is expected to return much more sample mass from Bennu and will provide another important opportunity to search for traces of the organic building blocks of life in carbon-rich asteroids.”
This Ryugu asteroid research has been published in the February 24, 2023 issue of the journal Science.
SPACE
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