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A study shows that organic materials essential to life on Earth, including water, were first discovered on the surface of an asteroid.
Planetologists from “Royal Holloway” University in London examined a speck of dust returned to Earth by the asteroid “Itokawa” by the Japan Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) as part of its first mission, “Hayabusa” in 2010.
It turns out that the water and organic matter came from the asteroid itself, rather than arriving as part of a collision, suggesting it was a chemical evolution over billion years.
This is the first time that such a material has been discovered on the surface of an asteroid, according to the British team responsible for the new study.
Scientists say this is a major discovery that could “rewrite the history of life on our planet” because it is very similar during evolution on early Earth.
The asteroid was slowly merging liquid and organic material in the same way, the researchers said.
Itokawa has continued to evolve over billions of years incorporating water and organic matter from foreign matter, just like the Earth.
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In the past, the study authors explain, the asteroid was subjected to intense heat, drought and shattered due to a catastrophic impact.
However, despite this, the asteroid formed from shattered fragments and rewetted with water that was carried by falling dust or carbon-rich meteorites.
This study shows that S-type asteroids, where most of Earth’s meteorites, like Itokawa, contain the elemental components of life.
Analysis of this asteroid changes traditional views of the origin of life on Earth, which previously focused heavily on carbon C-type asteroids.
This shows the value of bringing in samples of space rocks to study in Earth laboratories, said Dr Queenie Chan, of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway.
He continued, “After being studied in detail by an international team of researchers, our analysis of a single pill, dubbed ‘Amazon’, preserved both primitive (unheated) and processed (preheated) organic matter. more than 600 degrees Celsius in the past, and that the presence of unheated organic matter very close to it means that the fall of the primitive organic matter reached the surface of “Itokawa” after the cooling of the asteroid. “
Chan said studying the “Amazon” sample gave them a better understanding of how the asteroid was constantly evolving by adding new water and organic compounds.
These results are truly exciting because they reveal intricate details about the asteroid’s history and how its evolutionary path is very similar to that of early Earth.
The success of this mission and the analysis of the sample that has since returned to Earth paved the way for a more detailed analysis of the material returned from missions such as JAXA’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex.
The results are published in scientific reports.
Source: Daily Mail
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