Amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth, were discovered in material samples taken from an asteroid by a Japanese space probe in 2019, according to a study published on Friday.
These amino acids and other organic matter from the asteroid Ryugu can provide clues to the origin of life on Earthsays this study by scientists at Okayama University.
The discovery of amino acids capable of forming proteins is significant, since Ryugu is not exposed to the Earth’s biosphere, unlike meteorites.explain the researchers.
Therefore, their discovery proves that some of these elementary elements of life on Earth may have formed in galaxy environments.
The researchers identified 23 different amino acid types in 5.4 grams of black rock and dust samples collected at Ryugu’s Hayabusa-2 probe, whose capsule returned to Earth in late 2020 along with its important cargo after a six -year mission.
Discovered in 1999, the asteroid Ryugu (Dragon Palace, in Japanese) is located more than 300 million kilometers from our planet and less than 900 meters wide.
Scientists believe that some of the asteroid material was created about 5 million years after the birth of our solar system and was not heated more than 100 degrees Celsius.
According to another study published Thursday in the American journal Sciencethe thing taken from Ryugu has a chemical composition that more closely resembles the photosphere of the Sun. than meteorites.
Ryugu’s Samples give reason to believe that amino acids were brought to Earth from spacesaid Kensei Kobayashi, an astrobiologist and professor emeritus at Yokohama National University who was interviewed by AFP.
Another theory is that amino acids were created in the early Earth’s atmosphere by lightning.
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
