Organic materials essential for life on earth are first found on the surface of an asteroid

New research from Royal Holloway found that water and organic matter on the surface of an asteroid sample were recovered from the inner Solar System. This is the first time that organic materials, which could provide chemical precursors for the origin of life on earth, have been found on an asteroid.

The single grain sample was brought back to Earth from the asteroid Itokawa by JAXA’s first Hayabusa mission in 2010. The sample shows that water and organic matter derived from the asteroid have evolved chemically over time.

The research article suggests that Itokawa has evolved continuously over billions of years by ingesting water and organic matter from foreign foreign matter, just like the earth. In the past, the asteroid will overheat, dry out and shatter due to a catastrophic impact. Despite this, however, the asteroid re-emerged from the broken fragments and re-hydrated it with water produced by the dust or dust or carbon-rich meteorites.

This study shows that S-type asteroids, where most meteorites come from Earth, such as Itokawa, contain the raw ingredients of life. The analysis of this asteroid changes the traditional views on the origin of life on earth, which previously focused strongly on C-carbon rich asteroids.

Dr. Queenie Chan of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, said: “The Hayabusa mission was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japanese Aviation Agency to return samples of a small asteroid near Earth called Itokawa, for detailed analysis in laboratories. Earth.

“After studying an international team of researchers extensively, our analysis of a single grain, nicknamed ‘Amazon’, preserved primitive (unheated) and processed (heated) organic matter within ten microns (one thousandth of a centimeter). from a distance.

“The organic material that has been heated indicates that the asteroid has been heated to more than 600 ° C in the past. The presence of unheated organic material, very close to it, means that the autumn of primitive organic materials has arrived on the surface of Itokawa. after the asteroid has cooled. ‘

Dr. Chan, continued: “Studying Amazon has enabled us to better understand how the asteroid has evolved continuously by incorporating newly arrived exogenous water and organic compounds.

‘These findings are very exciting, as they reveal intricate details of the history of an asteroid and how its evolutionary path is similar to that of the prebiotic earth.

“The success of this mission and the analysis of the sample that returned to Earth has since paved the way for a more detailed analysis of carbonaceous material returned by missions such as JAXA’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex missions. “Both of these missions have identified exogenous materials on the respective asteroids Ryugu and Bennu. Our findings suggest that the mixing of materials is a common process in our solar system.”