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A tiny fraction of the asteroid Bennu pattern returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, proven in microscope photos. The highest-left pane reveals a darkish Bennu particle, a few millimeter lengthy, with an outer crust of shiny phosphate. The opposite three panels present progressively zoomed-in views of a fraction of the particle that break up off alongside a shiny vein containing phosphate, captured by a scanning electron microscope. Credit score: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/maps.14227
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A tiny fraction of the asteroid Bennu pattern returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, proven in microscope photos. The highest-left pane reveals a darkish Bennu particle, a few millimeter lengthy, with an outer crust of shiny phosphate. The opposite three panels present progressively zoomed-in views of a fraction of the particle that break up off alongside a shiny vein containing phosphate, captured by a scanning electron microscope. Credit score: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/maps.14227
Scientists have eagerly awaited the chance to dig into the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine asteroid Bennu pattern collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Useful resource Identification, and Safety—Regolith Explorer) mission because it was delivered to Earth final fall. They’ve hoped the fabric would maintain secrets and techniques of the photo voltaic system’s previous and the prebiotic chemistry which may have led to the origin of life on Earth.
An early evaluation of the Bennu pattern, revealed in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, demonstrates that this pleasure was warranted.
The OSIRIS-REx Pattern Evaluation Workforce discovered that Bennu comprises the unique components that fashioned our photo voltaic system. The asteroid’s mud is wealthy in carbon and nitrogen, in addition to natural compounds, all of that are important elements of life as we all know it. The pattern additionally comprises magnesium-sodium phosphate, which was a shock to the analysis staff, as a result of it wasn’t seen within the distant sensing information collected by the spacecraft at Bennu. Its presence within the pattern hints that the asteroid may have splintered off from a long-gone, tiny, primitive ocean world.
A phosphate shock
Evaluation of the Bennu pattern unveiled intriguing insights into the asteroid’s composition. Dominated by clay minerals, significantly serpentine, the pattern mirrors the kind of rock discovered at mid-ocean ridges on Earth, the place materials from the mantle, the layer beneath Earth’s crust, encounters water.
This interplay would not simply lead to clay formation; it additionally provides rise to a wide range of minerals like carbonates, iron oxides, and iron sulfides. However essentially the most sudden discovery is the presence of water-soluble phosphates. These compounds are elements of biochemistry for all recognized life on Earth in the present day.
Whereas an analogous phosphate was discovered within the asteroid Ryugu pattern delivered by JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) Hayabusa2 mission in 2020, the magnesium-sodium phosphate detected within the Bennu pattern stands out for its purity—that’s, the shortage of different supplies within the mineral—and the scale of its grains, unprecedented in any meteorite pattern.
The discovering of magnesium-sodium phosphates within the Bennu pattern raises questions concerning the geochemical processes that concentrated these parts and gives useful clues about Bennu’s historic situations.
“The presence and state of phosphates, together with different parts and compounds on Bennu, suggests a watery previous for the asteroid,” mentioned Dante Lauretta, co-lead writer of the paper and principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx on the College of Arizona, Tucson. “Bennu doubtlessly may have as soon as been a part of a wetter world, though this speculation requires additional investigation.”
“OSIRIS-REx gave us precisely what we hoped: a big pristine asteroid pattern wealthy in nitrogen and carbon from a previously moist world,” mentioned Jason Dworkin, a co-author on the paper and the OSIRIS-REx undertaking scientist at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland.
A microscope picture of a darkish Bennu particle, a few millimeter lengthy, with a crust of shiny phosphate. To the appropriate is a smaller fragment that broke off. Credit score: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/maps.14227
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A microscope picture of a darkish Bennu particle, a few millimeter lengthy, with a crust of shiny phosphate. To the appropriate is a smaller fragment that broke off. Credit score: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/maps.14227
From a younger photo voltaic system
Regardless of its attainable historical past of interplay with water, Bennu stays a chemically primitive asteroid, with elemental proportions intently resembling these of the solar.
“The pattern we returned is the biggest reservoir of unaltered asteroid materials on Earth proper now,” mentioned Lauretta.
This composition gives a glimpse into the early days of our photo voltaic system, over 4.5 billion years in the past. These rocks have retained their unique state, having neither melted nor resolidified since their inception, affirming their historic origins.
Hints at life’s constructing blocks
The staff has confirmed the asteroid is wealthy in carbon and nitrogen. These parts are essential in understanding the environments the place Bennu’s supplies originated and the chemical processes that remodeled easy parts into complicated molecules, doubtlessly laying the groundwork for all times on Earth.
“These findings underscore the significance of accumulating and finding out materials from asteroids like Bennu—particularly low-density materials that will usually expend upon coming into Earth’s environment,” mentioned Lauretta. “This materials holds the important thing to unraveling the intricate processes of photo voltaic system formation and the prebiotic chemistry that would have contributed to life rising on Earth.”
What’s subsequent
Dozens extra labs in america and world wide will obtain parts of the Bennu pattern from NASA’s Johnson Area Heart in Houston within the coming months, and lots of extra scientific papers describing analyses of the Bennu pattern are anticipated within the subsequent few years from the OSIRIS-REx Pattern Evaluation Workforce.
“The Bennu samples are tantalizingly lovely extraterrestrial rocks,” mentioned Harold Connolly, co-lead writer on the paper and OSIRIS-REx mission pattern scientist at Rowan College in Glassboro, New Jersey. “Every week, evaluation by the OSIRIS-REx Pattern Evaluation Workforce gives new and generally stunning findings which might be serving to place vital constraints on the origin and evolution of Earth-like planets.”
Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft traveled to near-Earth asteroid Bennu and picked up a pattern of rocks and dirt from the floor. OSIRIS-REx, the primary U.S. mission to gather a pattern from an asteroid, delivered the pattern to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023.
Extra info:
Dante S. Lauretta et al, Asteroid (101955) Bennu within the laboratory: Properties of the pattern collected by OSIRIS‐REx, Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/maps.14227