Carbon and water, which are important for the emergence of life, were found in the soil sample collected from the asteroid Bennu, which NASA considers a potentially dangerous object for the Earth. This was reported by Live Science.
Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid with a 1 in 2,700 chance of hitting Earth in 2182; this is the tallest of any known space object. On October 11, scientists took a soil sample collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. It was stated that it contained water and carbon.
One theory suggests that water may have come to Earth as a result of the impact of asteroids and comets. Moreover, the latter could bring nucleic acids or their precursors, the building blocks of life, to the planet. Some of these building blocks, including uracil, one of the nucleobases of RNA, were recently discovered on asteroid Ryugu by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Now scientists hope to find other similar materials in the Bennu sample.
“This is the largest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever sent to Earth. Carbon and water molecules are exactly the components we want to find. They played a critical role in the formation of Earth and “They will help determine the origin of elements that could lead to life,” he said.
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