The first analyses of samples brought back from the asteroid Ryugu show that this space rock contains some of the molecules needed for life.
The asteroid Ryugu, which orbits the sun between Earth and Mars, contains many of the building blocks for life, a new analysis finds.
An analysis of a tiny portion of this sample revealed that the carbon-rich asteroid also contains molecules that are crucial to all known life, including 15 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. These molecules themselves are not alive, but because they are found in all life, scientists call them"prebiotic.
And according to a second study, also published in Science , the organic materials on Ryugu may even predate the formation of the solar system itself, instead having formed in a primordial cloud of interstellar dust that eventually coalesced into Ryugu's parent body. In other words, many of the ingredients for life may be baked into the solar system from the very start.
Naraoka and a large international team extracted the molecules from just 30 micrograms of sample using a variety of solvents and analyzed the organic matter. They found thousands of combinations containing carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and/or sulfur, including the 15 amino acids. Other compounds included amines, which are nitrogen-containing, and carboxylic acids, which have a specific structure including carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
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