Remains of ancient brine discovered in the Bennu asteroid contain crucial minerals for life – on earth -, according to a study that indicates that this saline residue includes compounds never before observed in samples of such body.
The findings do not show evidence of life, but they do suggest that the necessary conditions for their emerge POT.
Your description is published in magazines Nature and Nature Astronomy In two articles that sign, among others, researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, NASA or the University of Hokkaido. The works also reveal a history of the existence of salt water that could have served as ‘broth’ so that these compounds interact and combine.
“Now we know that the basic ingredients of life were combined in really interesting and complex ways in the Bennu’s parent body,” says Tim McCoy, conservative of meteorites of the museum and main co -author of the first article.
Composition and antiquity of asteroid Bennu
Bennu’s parent asteroid, which formed about 4.5 billion years ago, seems to have hosted liquid water bags. The new findings indicate that the water evaporated and left salmueras that resembles the salty scabs of the dried lakes of the earth.
Bennu has been intrigued for investigators for a long time for their orbit close to the land and its carbon -rich composition. The scientists postulated that the asteroid contained remains of water and organic molecules and theorized that similar asteroids could have brought these materials to a primal land.
In 2020, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft collected Bennu samples. In September 2023, while the ship flew over the earth, dropped a capsule with the samples and when it landed in the Utah desert, the scientists moved to the place to recover it.
In total, it collected about 120 grams of material, approximately the weight of a soap pill and twice the amount required by the mission.
The valuable samples were distributed and lent themselves to researchers around the world for analysis. Among them, Sara Russell, cosmic mineralogist of the Natural History Museum of London and the main co -author of one of the articles together with McCoy, reports a statement from Smithsonian.
Unique minerals: differences between terrestrial and spatial salmueras
Scientists discovered eleven minerals in total that probably existed in an environment similar to brine in Bennu’s body.
The asteroid brine differs from terrestrials by its mineral composition. For example, Bennu samples are rich in phosphorus, which abounds in meteorites and is relatively scarce on earth.
The samples also lack a large extent of Boro, a common element in the hypersaline lakes of the earth, but extremely rare in meteorites.
Extraterrestrial salmuelas: similarities with Ceres and Encela
The researchers affirm that there are likely to be similar salmueras in other extraterrestrial bodies, such as the Dwarf Ceres and the icy moon of Enced Saturn, where the spacecraft have detected sodium carbonate.
Although Bennu’s salmuelas contain an interesting set of minerals and elements, it is not yet clear if the local environment was adequate to transform these ingredients into organic structures of great complexity.
“Now we know that we have the basic components to advance through this way to life, but we do not know to what extent this environment could allow things to progress,” says McCoy.
Amino acids and nitrogen bases: basic components of life
The second study offers more information about Bennu’s composition. This work describes multiple amino acids protein builders in the samples.
It also reports the discovery of nucleobases (nitrogen bases) that life on Earth uses to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex terrestrial biological molecules such as DNA and RNA, including how to organize amino acids to form proteins, points a NASA statement.
“The Osiris-Rex mission is already rewriting textbooks about what we understand about the beginnings of our solar system,” summarizes Nicky Fox, an associated administrator in the direction of scientific missions at NASA headquarters in Washington.
Few (EFE, University of Hokkaido, Nature, Nature Astronomy)
