Scientists have discovered the building properties of life on an asteroid in space. Ryugu, which is over 200 million miles from Earth, has been identified by over 20 amino acids. The asteroid was carefully harvested and stored in an airtight container in 2019, and returned it to Earth. Ryugu is made up of several small boulders rather than a single huge boulder.

Ryugu is rich in carbon-rich organic matter, most of which is thought to have originated from the same nebula that gave birth to the Sun and the Solar System around 4.6 billion years ago. According to previous sample research, water has also been found on the asteroid. [1]

Figure 1. Building Blocks of Life Discovered on Asteroid Located 200 million Miles away from Earth

Figure 1 shows the pitch-black asteroid samples, which only reflect 2 to 3 percent of the light that touches them, have not been modified by interactions with Earth's environment, giving them a chemical makeup far closer to that of the early Solar System. [2]

Geochemist Nicolas Dauphas, one of the three University of Chicago researchers who worked with the Japan-led team of scientists, said that they only had a few of these rocks to analyse earlier, and they were all meteorites that had been housed in museums for decades to centuries, changing their compositions. So, Dauphas added, it was remarkable to have immaculate samples from outer space because they are eyewitnesses from places of the solar system nobody has visited before. [3]

This means that amino acids could likely be found on other planets and natural satellites – a clue that "life could have been born in more places in the Universe than previously thought," he added. When the sample returns to Earth in 2023, signs of organic matter contained within it could provide scientists with important clues into the evolution of the Solar System and its materials, alongside how life emerged from them. [4]

References:

1. https://list23.com/898709-building-blocks-of-life-discovered-on-asteroid-located-200-million-miles-away-from-earth/
2. https://newslogic.in/science/building-blocks-of-life-discovered-on-asteroid-located-200-million-miles-away-from-earth/
3. https://gadgets360.com/science/news/asteroid-200-million-miles-earth-space-building-blocks-of-life-ryugu-hayabusa2-3054980
4. https://www.sciencealert.com/the-asteroid-ryugu-was-hiding-twenty-amino-acids

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Building Blocks of Life Discovered on Asteroid Located 200 million Miles away from Earth, Anatechmaz, pp.83