Samples of Asteroid Returned to Earth Reveal Possible Source of Water and Building Blocks of Life - SciTechDaily

August 16, 2022.

Asteroids from the outer Solar System may have brought the building blocks of life to Earth.

New research has revealed important new clues as to how the inner Solar System, including Earth, acquired its water and organic-rich components – the essential building blocks for all life.

The Kochi Team2 has undertaken a detailed study of eight particles returned to Earth from asteroid ‘Ryugu’ by the JAXA3 spacecraft Hayabusa2.

It was published on August 15, 2022, in Nature Astronomy.

They used data that was a critical component in establishing the links between the returned asteroid materials and the existing meteorite record.

Asteroids from the outer Solar System may have brought the building blocks of life to Earth.

Because the Ryugu samples were collected and returned to Earth in ultra-clean conditions, they are the most pristine, primitive Solar System samples that we have.

It seemed that materials from which the asteroid was composed had been heated to a high temperature and much of the water stored in them had been lost to space.

These are materials that have a composition that closely matches that of the Solar System itself, including the Sun.

For understanding the chemistry of the Solar System it turns out that the Ryugu materials are more precious gold dust.”.

Isotopic evidence (hydrogen and nitrogen) indicates that the fine-grained minerals and organics seen in the Ryugu particles formed in the outer Solar System.

Reference: “A pristine record of outer Solar System materials from asteroid Ryugu’s returned sample” by Motoo Ito, Naotaka Tomioka, Masayuki Uesugi, Akira Yamaguchi, Naoki Shirai, Takuji Ohigashi, Ming-Chang Liu, Richard C!

McKeegan, Kaori Hirahara, Akihisa Takeuchi, Shun Sekimoto, Ikuya Sakurai, Ikuo Okada, Yuzuru Karouji, Masahiko Arakawa, Atsushi Fujii, Masaki Fujimoto, Masahiko Hayakawa, Naoyuki Hirata, Naru Hirata, Rie Honda, Chikatoshi Honda, Satoshi Hosoda, Yu-ichi Iijima, Hitoshi Ikeda, Masateru Ishiguro, Yoshiaki Ishihara, Takahiro Iwata, Kosuke Kawahara, Shota Kikuchi, Kohei Kitazato, Koji Matsumoto, Moe Matsuoka, Tatsuhiro Michikami, Yuya Mimasu, Akira Miura, Osamu Mori, Tomokatsu Morota, Satoru Nakazawa, Noriyuki Namiki, Hirotomo Noda, Rina Noguchi, Naoko Ogawa, Kazunori Ogawa, Tatsuaki Okada, Chisato Okamoto, Go Ono, Masanobu Ozaki, Takanao Saiki, Naoya Sakatani, Hirotaka Sawada, Hiroki Senshu, Yuri Shimaki, Kei Shirai, Seiji Sugita, Yuto Takei, Hiroshi Takeuchi, Satoshi Tanaka, Eri Tatsumi, Fuyuto Terui, Ryudo Tsukizaki, Koji Wada, Manabu Yamada, Tetsuya Yamada, Yukio Yamamoto, Hajime Yano, Yasuhiro Yokota, Keisuke Yoshihara, Makoto Yoshikawa, Kent Yoshikawa, Ryota Fukai, Shizuho Furuya, Kentaro Hatakeda, Tasuku Hayashi, Yuya Hitomi, Kazuya Kumagai, Akiko Miyazaki, Masahiro Nishimura, Hiromichi Soejima, Ayako Iwamae, Daiki Yamamoto, Miwa Yoshitake, Toru Yada, Masanao Abe, Tomohiro Usui, Sei-ichiro Watanabe and Yuichi Tsuda, 15 August 2022, Nature Astronomy.

August 14, 2022