NASA's Osiris-Rex mission brought back samples from asteroid Bennu, revealing sodium-rich minerals, amino acids, and even parts of the genetic code. Scientists believe these ingredients, combined with water, may have played a crucial role in the emergence of life on Earth billions of years ago.
hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.
"That's the kind of environment that could have been essential to the steps that lead from elements to life,” said the Smithsonian Institution’s Tim McCoy, one of the lead study authors.NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after another space rock. It remains the biggest cosmic haul from beyond the moon.
“This discovery was only possible by analyzing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth," the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yasuhito Sekine, who was not involved in the studies, said in an accompanying editorial.Combining the ingredients of life with an environment of sodium-rich salt water, or brines, “that’s really the pathway to life,” said McCoy, the National Museum of Natural History's curator of meteorites.
Bennu — a rubble pile just one-third of a mile across — was originally part of a much larger asteroid that got clobbered by other space rocks. The latest results suggest this parent body had an extensive underground network of lakes or even oceans, and that the water evaporated away, leaving behind the salty clues.
Space Exploration ASTEROID LIFE WATER ORGANIC MOLECULES NASA
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