Bennu asteroid contains building blocks of life, say scientists

The chemical elements of life have been found in the granular dust of an asteroid called Bennu, reveals an analysis.

The samples of the space rock, which were picked up by a spacecraft of NASA and brought to earth, contain a rich range of minerals and thousands of organic compounds.

These include amino acids, which are the molecules that make up proteins, as well as nucleobics – the fundamental DNA components.

This does not mean that there was a life on Bennu, but it supports the theory that asteroids delivered these vital ingredients to the earth when they crushed on our planet billions of years ago.

Scientists believe that these same compounds could also have been brought to other worlds in our solar system.

“What we have learned is incredible,” said Professor Sara Russell, a cosmic mineralogist from the Natural History Museum in London.

“It tells us about our own origins, and it allows us to answer these really, very big questions where life has started. And who does not want to know how life started?”

The results are published in two articles in Nature and Nature Astronomy journals.

Seizing a little Bennu was one of the most daring missions that NASA has ever tried.

A spaceship called Osiris Rex deployed a robotic arm to collect part of the space rock 500 m wide, before packing it in a capsule and returning it to earth in 2023.

About 120 g of black dust were collected and shared with scientists from around the world. It may not look like a lot of equipment, but it turned out to be a treasure.

“Each grain tells us something new about Bennu,” said Professor Russell, who studied small spots.

About a teaspoon of asteroids was sent to scientists in the United Kingdom.

The new research has shown that space rock is full of compounds rich in nitrogen and carbon.

These include 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on earth uses to build proteins and the four rings molecules that make up DNA – adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.

The study also found a range of minerals and salts, which suggests that water was once present on the asteroid. Ammonia, which is important for biochemical reactions, has also been discovered in the sample.

Some of these compounds have been seen in space rocks that have fallen on earth, but others have not been detected so far.

“It’s just incredible how rich it is. It is full of these minerals that we have not seen before in the meteorites and the combination of those that we have not seen before. It was such an exciting thing to study,” said Professor Russell.

The latter study adds to increasing evidence that asteroids have brought water and organic matter to earth.

“The early solar system was really turbulent and there were millions of asteroids like Bennu flying,” said Dr. Ashley King, of the Natural History Museum.

The idea is that these bombed the young land, in sowing our planet with ingredients that gave us the oceans and made life possible.

But the earth was not the only world to be hit by space rocks. Asteroids would also have maintained with other planets.

“The earth is unique, in this sense that it is the only place where we have found life so far, but we know that asteroids delivered these ingredients, carbon and water, throughout the solar system,” said Dr. King.

“And one of the great things we are trying to understand now is that if you have the right conditions, why do we have life here on earth-and could we potentially find it elsewhere in our solar system?”

This is a key question that scientists will continue to try to answer.

They have decades of research to come on the dust brought back from Bennu, and certain parts of our cosmic district to explore.