
NASA said on Wednesday that recently retrieved samples from a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid contain signs of the components thought to be the foundation of life, carbon, and water.
The discoveries might aid research into the origins of life on Earth and the formation of the solar system.
The agency gave the public its first look at the rocky samples in a highly anticipated public event and described how preliminary research has already produced promising findings. According to NASA experts, the space rock fragments have a high carbon content and contain water molecules that are encased in clay minerals.
Astrobiologist Daniel Glavin, a co-investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission that brought back the asteroid sample, said researchers were ecstatic with the preliminary findings.
“We chose the appropriate asteroid. Additionally, we brought back the proper sample, he added. This is the stuff of astrobiologists’ dreams.
The samples were taken from the surface of Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid that is thought to have originated within the first 10 million years of the solar system’s formation.
The rocks and soil are the greatest collection of materials recovered from an asteroid and were the first asteroid samples transported back to Earth by NASA. Prior to this, samples from two different asteroids were gathered and returned by Japan’s Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions.
The rocky components of Bennu require further study, but the early findings are encouraging since the water and carbon composition of the space rock may help to explain how water first arrived on Earth.
Thus, according to Dante Lauretta, director of the OSIRIS-REx mission and professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona, the asteroid may have been crucial in the origin of life on Earth.
“These clay minerals, like the ones we’re seeing from Bennu, landed on Earth 4 billion to 412 billion years ago, making our world habitable,” said Lauretta. “That’s why Earth is a habitable world, that has oceans and lakes and rivers and rain.”
The “bonus” asteroid material that was discovered outside of the primary sample canister served as the basis for the preliminary analysis. NASA researchers still haven’t opened up the inside chamber, so they can’t yet say for sure how much rocky material was taken from Bennu. To collect roughly 60 grams, or 2 ounces, of rocks and soil was the objective of the mission.
The Johnson Space Center in Houston has a specialized facility where the asteroid samples are maintained. More than 200 experts from all around the world, including those from the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will have the chance to examine the samples taken from Bennu. According to NASA, some samples will be sent to the University of Arizona, Space Center Houston, and Smithsonian Institution for public display.
A part of the samples, according to agency officials, will be kept for future generations of scientists to investigate using unimagined technologies.
This content will endure for countless centuries, according to Glavin. We will discover a great deal about the formation of the solar system, its evolution, and perhaps even the origins of life on Earth.
Launched in 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled 4 billion miles in the previous seven years to collect samples from Bennu and bring them back to Earth. Last month, as the spacecraft passed the planet, it launched a capsule containing the priceless samples, scattering them over a landing area in the Utah desert.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is currently traveling to the asteroid Apophis, which is expected to approach Earth in 2029 within 20,000 miles. The probe will investigate the space rock closely as part of a prolonged mission and take exact measurements of its orbit.