Scientists say this asteroid may be from a distant water world

By Dean Murray via SWNS

Scientists studying a sample of an asteroid think it could have come from an ocean world.

The development came after researchers analyzed rocks and dust, called regolith, scooped up from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in 2020.

A spacecraft was able to extract the sample and carry it 200 million miles back to Earth.

Scientists had hoped the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) sample would hold secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry that might have led to the origin of life on Earth.

An early analysis study of the sample, published 26 in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, documents compounds found that are the components of biochemistry for all known life on Earth today.

The OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team discovered that Bennu contains the original ingredients that formed our solar system.

NASA says: "The asteroid’s dust is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it.

"The sample also contains magnesium-sodium phosphate, which was a surprise to the research team, because it wasn’t seen in the remote sensing data collected by the spacecraft at Bennu.

"Its presence in the sample hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from a long-gone, tiny, primitive ocean world."

Dante Lauretta, co-lead author of the paper and principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson, says: "The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds on Bennu, suggest a watery past for the asteroid.

"Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world. Although, this hypothesis requires further investigation."

Jason Dworkin, a co-author on the paper and the OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, says: "OSIRIS-REx gave us exactly what we hoped: a large pristine asteroid sample rich in nitrogen and carbon from a formerly wet world."