The Desert in Utah is famous for its assumed foreign visitors, but proves that the true outside messenger who parached the soft landing there in September 2023 has a more impact. On the boat, the truck tire -sized capsule from space was a very valuable cargo. It is a material that is more than 120 grams from the early history of the solar system. Three years ago, NASA’s OSIRIS-REX SPACECRAFT grabbed these samples from the asteroid Bennu surface for fateful childbirth on the earth. Hopefully, coal surplus was to help the solar system, and how the life of the earth and our planet was formed. Immediately after Bennu recovery, scientists began to analyze them at a highly specialized laboratory.
The preliminary results of the breathtaking of the job that had been teased earlier last year have been more detailed and decisive, checking the huge scientific value of the sample. Two studies published on January 29, 2025 indicate that even in the dark and cold areas of the early solar system, surprisingly diverse chemical processes have created many life blocks.
At that time, more than 4.5 billion years ago, countless celestial bodies that go around the newborn sun repeatedly collided with a mixed OTIC of primitive billiards, hit another person, and gathered in larger objects. Benne was somewhere in the mix. It is a pile of tile BLE discharged from large celestial bodies that have been sacrificed by great impact. However, the signs of this unknown precursor cells survived in Benne, a RAW material from a young solar system stored in the cold of the universe.
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As described in the paper listed in the journal, it seems that Benne’s body clearly contained a lot of water. Nature。 Some water evaporated and left salted salt water. According to the accompanying papers published Natural astronomy, This salt water contained 14 out of 20 amino acids contained in landbako, and thousands of organic compounds, including all nucleotide bases that make up DNA and RNA. This means that the basic molecules of life actually existed in our solar system from the beginning.
Tim McCoy, the author of the co -lead Nature SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM research and MET stone experts were already involved in the first analysis of the Bennu sample that began shortly after arriving on the earth. Many minerals revealed in these first appearance are no longer so mysterious. It was clearly found that they were residuals of evaporated water sediments.
The original celestial body that Benne came was probably not covered with the sea like the earth. It says, “It was a wet world,” but McCoy says, “Probably … more than a mud world … there was a sea above or below the surface. According to McCOY Probably short -lived, only a few meters of thickness, which does not mean that their age -related meaning is reduced. McCoy says that “discovery” not only has the first step components to life, but also has a promising environment for such measures.
How did the salted salt water of Benne be similar to the “primitive soup” that stewed a young and watery earth and cooked the first land life? This was the question that was treated as follows Natural astronomy Study co-led by Daniel Glavin, the lead of NASA scientists and the lead of the OSIRIS-REX Organics Analysis team, and includes some members around the world. Looking for a organic compound of Benne’s sample material, he and his colleagues discovered most of the amino acids and all the nucleotide bases required for life on the earth. Grabin explains that these compounds have been identified as MET stones that have previously fallen into our planet, but unlike these cases, Bennne’s sample through the pollution of the earth and the atmosphere of the earth. Protected from the heat of the high -speed plummet hell.
According to some theory, the childhood chemical precursor on the earth was imported through asteroids, not homemade. Gravin believes that the discovery of organic molecules will strengthen these ideas. Certainly, this decisive evidence that many of the molecular building blocks in life are very widespread in the early solar system, “life can start from other places beyond the earth.” I let you do it.
Bennu’s valuable OSIRIS-REX sample analysis is ongoing and uses a variety of latest methods around the world. One of these is Schweate Cosmochemistry Laborator in Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. This boasts a powerful transparent electron microscope (TEM) that can be used to examine the highest structure with the highest accuracy. For this purpose, it is the only TEM research institute other than the United States. SHERI SINGERLING, a researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and co -author of THE:: Nature study. Nevertheless, she emphasizes that her work is only one of the puzzles. “It’s better enough to look at these samples from researchers with various expertise.
Overall, the research on sample has a strong curiosity of Bennne’s mysterious substance and still sketches incomplete pictures. Compared to asteroids formed from many crushed fragments, Cindrings conclude that their core is “large and density.” When a large -scale impact exploded what became a bennes in space, the core lost volatile ingredients such as liquids, and probably excavated some materials from its depth. In Benne, such fragments seem to be clearly together. “Looking at the surface of Benne today and the surface near the surface, I was able to see the well -formed materials in my body,” says Cindring.
Benne is currently circulating the sun in the distance of the Earth’s sun, but the original celestial body must have been formed further. But how far? “MET stones, such as cartilage, calcium, and aluminum, have missing specific specific features,” says singer ring. Such a structure is formed at high temperatures, especially near the sun. “This all refers to the origin of the outer solar system on the outside of the core, like Bennne’s isotope and organic substances,” she added. McCoy also finds the origin of the Benne in the rear of these distant cold. He says that it must have been formed in a stable place, saying, “It is likely to be the current position since Jupiter.” The abundant existence of volatile ammonia in the sample is “further evidence of (the origin of Benne) in the cold and outer area of the solar system”.
In addition to the fact that contaminants are very close and closely related to specific known sources, Benne’s sample is unusual in another important way, and singing light is described as follows: From the asteroid Lug and Osirisrex to Benne, “she says. Japan Prove Hayabusa2 brought asteroid materials nearly 5.5 grams to Earth in 2020. Both samples of these missions are remarkably similar to each other, and are the most similar materials found in MET stones called CI Chondright. “These are very rare in the MET stone collection on the earth,” Sinding says. This is because the CI chondrite is very delicate, so it usually cannot stand the intense ride that passes through the atmosphere of the earth. “This is a biased of our collection, and these types of samples are more common in space than those acquired on the earth,” concludes the Cindal. 。 For her and others, this is another reason why return missions are indispensable from asteroid samples.
And you may be surprised by the transportation of OSIRIS-REX. “We’re still very early on the analysis of Benne Sample analysis,” grabin says. His team is currently investigating a much larger sample from an asteroid weighing about 6 grams. We are examining insufficient materials to identify unknown organic molecules, such as sugar and peptide. (IN) DNA and RNA. Glavin’s goal is to gain more accurate ideas about how organic molecules were formed in the Bennu.
On the other hand, such a study draws more detailed pictures about how important molecules are very important in the proliferation of life in the early solar system. On the other hand, they indicate where the conditions suitable for their growth exist. And it can be said that such conditions seem to have occurred much more frequently than before the earth. Thus, McCoy’s biggest problem is “how this ancient salt water is compared with the modern salt water that exists in the outer ice body, like Saturn’s Moon Enkelladus.” In other words, the building blocks of life are still abundant in the neighborhood of our planet, and have you caused the “second origin” of life under the advantageous conditions other than the solar system? “I can’t answer the question until I visit these places with an instrument that can shoot samples,” says McCoy.
Scientists can study Benne’s small fragments for many years, and definitely gain more insight into the history of the solar system, and perhaps the history of life itself. However, it is clear that only new missions on other celestial bodies will be revealed. “All discoveries create more questions,” says singer ring. “That is the beauty of science, and the end -of -end search.”
This article was originally published Spektrum Der WissensChaft It was duplicated with permission.
