NASA officials in Houston presented images of rock fragments and space dust particles that were brought to Earth by the asteroid Bennu and described their initial scientific observations of the material.
Η Mission Osiris-Rex, completed in September when a capsule of asteroid dust landed and was retrieved from the Utah desert. The first pieces of the spacecraft were analyzed using various laboratory techniques. At this moment we have the first findings.
Scientists found water molecules trapped in clay minerals (water from Bennu-like asteroids could have filled Earth's oceans).
"The reason that Earth is a habitable world, and that we have oceans and lakes and rivers and rain, is because these clay minerals, like the ones we found on Bennu, landed on Earth four billion years ago," said Dante Lauretta, the mission's principal investigator, during a NASA event on Wednesday. The materials also contained sulphur, key for many geological transformations in rocks.
"It determines how fast things melt, and it's also critical to biology," said Dr. Lauretta, who presented microscopic images and XNUMXD renderings of the material.
The scientists also found magnetite, an iron oxide mineral that can play an important role as a catalyst in organic chemical reactions.
"We are looking at the kinds of minerals that may have played a central role in the origin of life on Earth," said Dr. Lauretta. The samples are also full of carbon, an element that is the building block for life.
