Samples from Asteroid May Provide Clues to Life on Earth

© NASA/JPL-CALTECH/ASUThis illustration, updated as of March 2021, depicts NASA's Psyche spacecraft. Set to launch in August 2022, the Psyche mission will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will arrive in early 2026 and orbit the asteroid for nearly two years to investigate its composition.
This illustration, updated as of March 2021, depicts NASA's Psyche spacecraft. Set to launch in August 2022, the Psyche mission will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will arrive in early 2026 and orbit the asteroid for nearly two years to investigate its composition.

 - Sputnik International, 1920, 17.08.2022
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Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe was launched in 2014 and returned in 2020, crashing in the Australian outback. It collected a sample from the Ryugu asteroid. Ryugu means “dragon place” in Japanese.
Material brought back to Earth from an asteroid named Ryugu may provide clues on how the basic building blocks of life ended up on Earth.
How the building blocks required for all life on Earth got here remains a subject of debate among scientists, but asteroids bringing them here has long been a popular theory.
A new study looking at the 5.4 grams of material the Japanese Hayabusa2 probe returned to earth in 2020 after an eight year mission suggests that theory may hold some weight. The researchers, who hail from Japan and other countries, say they found organic material showing that amino acids, an essential building block for life on Earth, may have been formed in space.
Composite image showing the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, better known as bullet cluster - Sputnik International, 1920, 07.08.2022
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They also say that the material may provide clues to how oceans were formed in the early stages of Earth’s history.
“Volatile and organic-rich C-type asteroids may have been one of the main sources of Earth's water," the study scientists say.
They further state that it is likely at least some of the volatiles (water and organic material) came from outside of the solar system, but that it is unlikely that it was the only source.
“Ryugu particles are undoubtedly among the most uncontaminated Solar System materials available for laboratory study and ongoing investigations of these precious samples will certainly expand our understanding of early Solar System processes," said the study’s authors.
Scientists will soon have more asteroid material to study. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission collected a sample from a similar asteroid, named Bennu, which will return to Earth in 2023.
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