‘It blew us away’: how an asteroid may have delivered the vital ingredients for life on Earth | Alien life

Several billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, it was a boring wet world around our sun. Then it collided, disastrous, with another object and shattered into pieces.

It became one of these blocs The asteroid Banu Its minerals, which recently returned to Earth by the U.S. space probe, Osrice-Rix, were found, Rich levels of complex chemicals Which is crucial to the existence of life.

Professor Sarah Russell, cosmic mineralist in Natural History Museum In London, a leader of a major study in nature From the minerals. “The diversity of the preserved molecules and minerals is not similar to any samples from outside the ground that have been studied before.”

The results of this and other tasks will be a central show at the Natural History Museum exhibition, Space: Can life exist outside Earth?Which opens on May 16. Russell said it would be an essential opportunity for the public to learn about the recent developments in searching for life in other worlds.

As the exhibition will also reveal, basic chemical building blocks can be found for life in other organisms in the solar system such as meteorites. However, it was found that the material from Bennu, which was named after an old Egyptian legendary bird, is especially rich in these sediments. Russell said: “It is clear that his mother world had lakes from a saline solution under the ground, and when they evaporated, they left behind salts similar to those in the dry lake family on the ground.”

In addition, phosphate, ammonia and more than ten amino acids that buy protein in the forms of life on the ground-as well as the building blocks of the five nucleus that make up RNA and DNA-in samples that are repeated by Osoris-Rex.

She added: “This strongly indicates that Bennu’s asteroids were shattered on Earth, which brought decisive ingredients that led to the emergence of life here.”

Scientists do not believe that life has evolved on Bennu itself, but they believe that other asteroids as if they may provide other worlds with the basic components of life. On the ground, with its warm and stable environment, this led to the emergence of the first appearance of the multiplication of living organisms in more than 3.7 billion years. It remains to see whether they have appeared in other promising worlds such as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which include Europa, Ganymede, Titan and Encladus. This is now the subject of a number of tasks that will appear in the exhibition and include two investigations that are now heading to the satellites covered with ice. Europe and GanimidyWhich is known to have liquid water oceans.

In addition, Rosalind Franklin Robot Rover from the United Kingdom It is scheduled to land on Mars In 2029 he will deeply limit his soil, in search of evidence for life.

In the past, samples of rocks were outside the planet available for the study, which are mainly limited in meteorites, cutting the moon that was returned by astronauts, robot investigations, and blocks from Mars It was detonated towards Earth when the large things hit the red planet and the debris blew up in space – as some eventually fell to our Mars Knazik.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to touch samples of lunar materials and Mars, in addition to a meteorite that has landed on our planet after the asteroid. Interestingly, this rock is older than the Earth itself.

“This will be great,” said Sinid Maroun, director of the museum’s great exhibition.

Russell said that Osiris Rex returned 120 g of Banu dust to Earth, and the museum was granted about 200 mg to study. “When we opened the capsule for the first time, we saw this black dust everywhere, with white molecules in it. We thought it might be contaminated. But it turned out that it was a phosphorous compound that we did not see in meteorites, but this is very important to develop life. I was astonished.”

The possibility that life elsewhere in the universe topped the headlines last week when it was announced that notes from Exoplanet K2-18B by the James Web Telescope has revealed Chemical fingerprints From two vehicles, on Earth, it is known that life is only produced.

On their own, chemicals, diathyl sulfide (DMS), and Dimethyl Disulfide (DMDS) do not reach proof of foreign biological activity, but have strengthened our hopes that we are not alone in the universe.

Proof that life is present in the distant worlds outside our solar system will be very difficult, as scientists recognize – less than a sign of intelligence outside the planet that announces its existence.

On the contrary, the strange forms of life within our solar system will be easier to collect and study them and may one day prove that life in other worlds is already present.

Maroun said: “What we will do about such a discovery is different.” “One of the things we will ask the visitors of the exhibition to think about is how we will treat life if we find it on Mars or another world. Will we stay away from it or try to interact with it?

“Or will we try to eat it, such as to eat the forms of life that we share with this planet? Such questions about strange life help us think about the ways we deal with other forms of life in our world.”