Research Labs study asteroid Bennu’s watery past & building blocks of life via probe samples

[C C]

Berkeley Lab helps explore mysteries of asteroid Bennu
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1072028

INTRO: During the past year, there’s been an unusual set of samples at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab): material gathered from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu when it was roughly 200 million miles from Earth.

Berkeley Lab is one of more than 40 institutions investigating Bennu’s chemical makeup to better understand how our solar system and planets evolved. In a new study published today in the journal Nature, researchers found evidence that Bennu comes from an ancient wet world, with some material from the coldest regions of the solar system, likely beyond the orbit of Saturn.

The asteroid contained a set of salty mineral deposits that formed in an exact sequence when a brine evaporated, leaving clues about the type of water that flowed billions of years ago. Brines could be a productive broth for cooking up some of the key ingredients of life, and the same type of minerals are found in dried-up lake beds on Earth (such as Searles Lake in California) and have been observed on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus... (MORE - details, no ads)
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Dust from asteroid Bennu shows: Building blocks of life and possible habitats were widespread in our solar system
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1072060

EXCERPTS: It took two years for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past Earth, which was then recovered in the desert of the U.S. state of Utah on September 24, 2023. Its contents: 122 grams of dust and rock from asteroid Bennu.

The probe had collected this sample from the surface of the 500-metre agglomerate of unconsolidated material in a touch-and-go maneuver that took just seconds. Since the capsule protected the sample from the effects of the atmosphere, it could be analyzed in its original state...

[...] “Together with our international partner teams, we have been able to detect a large proportion of the minerals that are formed when salty, liquid water – known as brine – evaporates more and more and the minerals are precipitated in the order of their solubility,” explains Dr. Sheri Singerling...

[...] “Other teams have found various precursors of biomolecules such as numerous amino acids in the Bennu samples,” reports Prof. Frank Brenker. “This means that Bennu’s parent body had some known building blocks for biomolecules, water and – at least for a certain time – energy to keep the water liquid.” However, the break-up of Bennu’s parent body interrupted all processes very early on and the traces that have now been discovered were preserved for more than 4.5 billion years... (MORE - details, no ads)

[Yazata]

Latest Bennu findings published today!

I just skimmed it, but it looks like Bennu was a gold mine for the astrobiologists. No evidence of life, but lots of life's precursors.

Lots of organic material. 14 of the 20 amino acids found in Earth life and all five nucleobases found in Earth nucleic acids. Most fascinating are evaporites that appear to have formed by evaporation in a briny aqueous environment. (Which raises the question of how Bennu originated. From an early planet that had liquid water on its surface and broke up? Or did early planetesimals have liquid water?)

Bennu appears to provide lots of ammunition for the hypotheses that the precursers of Earth life came from outer space.

Summary for laypeople

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-...gredients/

The hard stuff (which I see CC also linked to)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02472-9

[Yazata]

Check out this little 4 minute video from NASA that explains at layman level what was found in the Bennu samples and why it's important.

In my opinion, it's not just imporant, it's HUGE. Many of the basics of life were present on Bennu, and presumably in the very early solar system even before the Earth had formed. 14 of the 20 amino acids found in Earth life were found in Bennu, along with all five nucleobases found in DNA. There was also evidence that early in its history, Bennu's parent body had liquid water.

All of which suggests both that the history of the origin of life might extend back further than believed up to now, to outer space even before Earth existed, and also to the possibility that life might be more common in the universe than hitherto suspected if the universe is teeming with its building blocks.

Exciting developments for the astrobiologists and origin-of-life theorists!

https://x.com/NASAGoddard/status/1884633735410123260