Search for Life’s Building Blocks in Asteroid Sample at NASA Laboratory

Excited researchers anticipate the presence of a state-of-the-art laboratory.

A sample of the Bennu asteroid that could be key to understanding the formation of the solar system and our own planet is to be analyzed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston when it reaches Earth in late September.

The precious cargo is currently on OSIRIS-REx, a US space probe launched in 2016 to Bennu, which orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 105 million miles (168 million kilometers).

Long white sleeves hang from a huge metal and glass box where the sample is processed.

Scientists separate bits of rock and dust for study now, while carefully storing the rest for future generations with better technology — a practice first started with the Apollo missions to the Moon.

“We don’t expect there to be anything alive, but (rather) the building blocks of life,” Nicole Lunning, lead curator of specimens at OSIRIS-Rex, told AFP.

“That really motivates us to go to this type of asteroid to understand what precursors might have contributed to life in our solar system and on Earth.”

When the return ship arrives at the Texas “clean room,” Lunning’s job is to carefully unpack it and separate the contents, keeping the material clean and uncontaminated.

– The origin of life –

The spacecraft is scheduled to land in the Utah desert on Sept. 24, carrying an estimated 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams, of the material — just over a cup.

Getting it involved a high-risk mission in October 2020: the probe came into contact with the asteroid for a few seconds, and a burst of compressed nitrogen was released to lift a dust sample, which was then collected.

The entire mission was in jeopardy when NASA discovered a few days later that a valve in the collection compartment would not close, allowing debris to escape into space.

But the precious cargo was finally captured when it was transferred to a capsule attached to the center of the spacecraft.

The first samples brought to Earth by asteroids were taken by Japanese probes in 2010 and 2020, and the latter was found to contain uracil, one of the building blocks of RNA.

The discovery added weight to a long-standing theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space when asteroids crashed into our planet carrying basic elements.

Cosmochemist Eve Berger can’t wait to work with the Bennu material.

“These samples haven’t hit Earth. They haven’t been exposed to our atmosphere. They haven’t been exposed to anything really except harsh space for billions of years,” he said.

Ultimately, they “help us determine if what we really think is true,” Berger said.

Not only can the Bennu sample add to our knowledge of the ingredients that brought life to our world, but “if we can figure out what happened here on Earth, it helps us extrapolate to other bodies what we might look like or what we might look like. We can interpret what we’re seeing,” he added.

Could Bennu bring back something never seen before? “You never know,” said Berger.

“Bennu is a cheater, so we’ll know more in a few months when the sample comes back – that would be exciting!”