The extraterrestrial rocks, recently brought by a spatial probe on the benu asteroid, could answer the great questions about the extraterrestrial forms and human existence on Earth.
The last tests from the asteroid Bennu amazed scientists. Photo archive
A few billions of years ago, at the beginning of the solar system, a wet and salty world collided, catastrophically, with another object and crushed into pieces. One of these pieces became the asteroid Bennu, whose minerals, recently brought to the American robotic spatial probe Osiris-Rex, have proven to contain complex chemicals that are essential for life.
“Benu’s problems left us speechless,” said Professor Sara Russell, Cosmic Mineralog at the Natural History Museum in London and one of the main authors of an important study in Nature about Bennu minerals. “The diversity of preserved molecules and minerals does not resemble any extraterrestrial sample so far”, she explained.
Although the basic chemical elements of life can be found in other heavenly bodies in the solar system, such as meteorites, it has been found that the material in Bennu, which bears the name of an ancient Egyptian mythological bird, is particularly rich in these deposits.
“His mother’s world has clearly had underground brine lakes, and when they evaporated they left behind salts that resemble those found in the beds of dry lakes,” said Sara Russell, quoted by Guardian.
In addition, the analyzes performed on the samples brought by Osiris-Rex revealed the presence of phosphates, ammonia and over 12 amino acids that form the essential proteins. Moreover, the five nucleic bases that form DNA and RNA have been identified, so scientists claim the theory that asteroids such as Bennu brought fundamental “ingredients” for the appearance of life.
“They strongly suggest that similar asteroids with Bennu have collapsed on earth, bringing crucial ingredients that led to life here,” added the mineralog.
Although Bennu did not hide life, the world from which it comes had features that could have allowed this: underground brine lakes, whose remaining salts resemble those in the dry lakes of the Earth.
On Earth, with its warm and stable environment, these elements have led to the first reproductive organisms now more than 3.7 billion years.
It remains to be seen if they have appeared on other planets or other heavenly bodies, such as Mars and the months of Jupiter and Saturn, which include Europe, Ganymede, Titan and Enceladus. The Rover Rosalind Rosalind Franklin, built in the UK, is scheduled to land on Mars in 2029 and will drill deep into its soil, looking for life evidence.
Could there be life beyond the earth?
Scientists admit that it will be extremely difficult to demonstrate that there is life on distant worlds outside our solar system, in the absence of an extraterrestrial intelligence that announces its existence.
On May 16, several extraterrestrial samples will be the subject of an exhibition of the Museum of Natural History, Space, entitled “Could Life exist Beyond Earth?” (“Could there be life beyond the earth?”). Visitors will be able to reach samples of monthly and Martian material, as well as a meteorite who has landed on our planet after detaching from an asteroid.
Osiris-Rex brought 120 g of Bennu powder to Earth, and the museum received about 200 mg to study them. “When I first opened the capsule, I saw this black dust everywhere, with white particles in it. We thought it could be contaminated. But it turned out to be a phosphorus compound I have never seen in meteorites, but which is absolutely crucial to the development of life. We were amazed.” said Prof. Sara Russell.
The prospect of life existence in other parts of the universe held the first page of newspapers last week, when it was announced that the observations of the James Webb space telescope on the exoplanet K2-18B have revealed the chemical fingerprints of two compounds that are known to be produced only by life. Dimetil sulphide (DMS) and Dimetil disulfura (DMDS) are not a proof of extraterrestrial biological activity, but they have increased hopes that we are not alone in the universe.
“One of the things we will ask to the visitors of the exhibition will be to think is how we treat life if we find Mars or another world. We would stay away from it or try to interact with it? Or try to eat it, as we eat the forms of life with which we divide this planet?concluded Sinead Marron, the curator of the exhibition with extraterrestrial minerals.
