They arose in a bubble, puddle or other collection of water of about 37 degrees Celsius, somewhere on or in a piece of cosmic rock, when the solar system was ‘only’ five million years young. And now, some four and a half billion years later, researchers have measured those minerals in a morsel of grit and dust from the distant asteroid Ryugu, a compacted, porous collection of debris currently located some 300 million kilometers from Earth. earth was located.
After analysis, it appears, the researchers involved in the trade magazine science, that the sample is quite similar to certain types of carbon-rich meteorites (for those in the know: chondrites of type CI), pieces of rock that have collided with Earth in the past. The only difference: Where those meteorites have been altered by their stay on our planet, weathered by rain, sun and wind, the material the researchers have now studied is completely untouched.
batter bowl
That officially makes the monster the most pristine cosmic material on Earth. Not surprising, because asteroids like Ryugu are the leftover lumps from the mixing bowl in which Mother Nature once kneaded the earth and other planets. Uncovering their composition therefore provides a direct link to the evolution of the solar system.
A ‘very promising’ result, says astronomer Lucas Ellerbroek, who in the past analyzed the finds of the European Rosetta mission, among other things. It visited another distant asteroid, where the probe analyzed its chemical composition on the spot. Because more extensive analyzes are possible on Earth, later missions, including Hayabusa 2 and Nasa mission Osirix-Rex, which is expected to deliver its package next year, decided to bring the material here.
In the paper, the researchers describe that, even more than the CI chondrites, the sample resembles the sun’s photosphere, the deepest layer of our parent star’s atmosphere.
Building blocks of life
Ellerbroek expects even more exciting analyzes of the sample in the near future. For example, during a scientific conference in March, researchers involved in the Hayabusu mission maakten already concise report of the discovery of amino acids, an important building block of life. The new article in science however, does not give any details on this.
According to Ellerbroek, it is obvious that the researchers will soon report such finds in more detail. “We know that the basic building blocks of life, including amino acids, probably existed very early in the history of the solar system,” he says.
Missions such as Hayabusa 2 can therefore especially help to reveal the exact timeline of the chemical evolution of the solar system. For example, it is still an open question whether all basic components for life after the formation of our planet were already present here, or whether they originated on asteroids such as Ryugu. They would then have brought the building blocks here via impacts, suggested the famous astronomer Carl Sagan . in the nineties† ‘That would be a magical discovery, if life did indeed come from space,’ says Ellerbroek. ‘But it is still too early for such conclusions for the time being.’