Samples from the asteroid Bennu taken by NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission in 2023 have finally been analyzed. Since the capsule containing the fragments had landed in the Utah desert, the different fragments have been divided and distributed to various research laboratories around the world, with the goal of analyzing them to better understand the nature of our solar system. As shown in the study published in Nature Astronomy, the researchers found compounds inside that had never before been seen on other asteroids, including 14 of the 20 “terrestrial” amino acids that make up proteins on our planet. The samples also contain all five of the nitrogenous bases that make up DNA and RNA, namely adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine and uracil, but also nicotinic acid (vitamin B3) and other organic compounds.
One of the most surprising results, the authors explain, was “finding compounds containing sodium carbonate that had never been detected in other asteroids before. These compounds are usually found in the bottoms of evaporated lakes that were once rich in sodium, such as Lake Searles in the Mojave Desert in the United States.”
The researchers also point out that detecting such a large number of elements found on Earth could confirm the theory that asteroids may have brought to our planet the biological elements necessary for its origin.
