Japan asteroid probe finds 23 amino acids, researchers confirm:
A total of 23 types of amino acids were found in asteroid samples brought back by Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe, according to new studies published in the journal Science and elsewhere, shedding further light on the origins of life on Earth.
[...] Whether amino acids originated on Earth or arrived from space has been a topic of much scientific debate. The findings from Hayabusa2 appear to support the latter hypothesis.
"The search for extraterrestrial life could take off on hopes that amino-acid-based organisms could exist on Mars and beyond," said Tamagawa University professor Yoshitaka Yoshimura.
The findings also could shed more light on the birth of the solar system. Some of the samples are thought to contain compounds from when they were originally formed -- around 3 million years after the solar system was created roughly 4.6 billion years ago -- essentially making them a "fossil" of the solar system.
[...] Elemental and isotopic data revealed that Ryugu contains the most primitive pre-solar nebular (an ancient disk of gas and dust surrounding what would become the Sun) material yet identified and that some organic materials may have been inherited from before the solar system formed.
[...] The discovery of protein forming amino acids is important, because Ryugu has not been exposed to the Earth's biosphere, like meteorites, and as such their detection proves that at least some of the building blocks of life on Earth could have been formed in space environments. Hypotheses concerning the origin of life, such as those involving hydrothermal activity, require sources of amino acids, with meteorites and asteroids like Ryugu representing strong candidates due to their inventory of amino acids and because such material would have been readily delivered to the surface of the early Earth. Additionally, the isotopic characteristics of the Ryugu samples suggest that Ryugu-like material could have supplied the Earth with its water, another resource essential for the origin and sustainment of life on Earth.
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Uracil found in Ryugu samples:
Researchers have analyzed samples of asteroid Ryugu collected by the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft and found uracil—one of the informational units that make up RNA, the molecules that contain the instructions for how to build and operate living organisms. Nicotinic acid, also known as Vitamin B3 or niacin, which is an important cofactor for metabolism in living organisms, was also detected in the same samples.
This discovery by an international team, led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Oba at Hokkaido University, adds to the evidence that important building blocks for life are created in space and could have been delivered to Earth by meteorites.
"Scientists have previously found nucleobases and vitamins in certain carbon-rich meteorites, but there was always the question of contamination by exposure to the Earth's environment," Oba explained. "Since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected two samples directly from asteroid Ryugu and delivered them to Earth in sealed capsules, contamination can be ruled out."
"We found uracil in the samples in small amounts, in the range of 6–32 parts per billion (ppb), while vitamin B3 was more abundant, in the range of 49–99 ppb," Oba elaborated. "Other biological molecules were found in the sample as well, including a selection of amino acids, amines and carboxylic acids, which are found in proteins and metabolism, respectively." The compounds detected are similar but not identical to those previously discovered in carbon-rich meteorites.
"The discovery of uracil in the samples from Ryugu lends strength to current theories regarding the source of nucleobases in the early Earth," Oba concludes. "The OSIRIS-REx mission by NASA will be returning samples from asteroid Bennu this year, and a comparative study of the composition of these asteroids will provide further data to build on these theories."
Journal Reference:
Oba, Y., Koga, T., Takano, Y. et al. Uracil in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu. Nat Commun 14, 1292 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36904-3
Related:
Building Blocks of Life Found in Meteorite Which Crashed Landed in Gloucestershire
Asteroid Material Returned by Japan Probe is Oldest Material Identified and Contains 23 Amino Acids
All Five DNA and RNA Nucleobases Found in Meteorites
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @04:42PM (4 children)
AND WASH WITH YOUR TESTICLE SWEAT
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday June 13 2022, @04:48PM (3 children)
So what you're saying, is that they need you alive.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday June 13 2022, @04:57PM (2 children)
Why do you think we still exist and are told to breed by virtually all religions?
Raptor Jesus wants your blood!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday June 13 2022, @05:08PM
Please beware of priests baring gifts.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday June 13 2022, @05:15PM
Well, "The blood is the life".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @06:03PM
Yeah, but how many tentacles?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @06:22PM
It would have been interesting to know how many, if any, of those identified amino acids, are among the 20 [wikipedia.org] (22 [wikipedia.org]) amino acids used in the genetic code in life on Earth.
The text Amino acids, such as those found within the proteins of every living organism on Earth, were detected in a Ryugu particle ... could be interpreted as either that some of them were among those used in the genetic code, or that they all were from among the other around 500 or so amino acids known to science.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday June 13 2022, @08:29PM
Or the Drake equation? Would it now seem more likely that the seeds of life could have been on other planets long ago, even if they went nowhere? Of those that went anywhere, could "animal" life develop? Intelligent life, etc?
Would they use different EM modulation techniques like polar modulation?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @10:00PM (1 child)
confirming that nature exists everywhere should not be that surprising. sure our particular path of evolution may be unique here on our rock, but this does not preclude the building blocks been produced everywhere else. if anything the baseline expectation is for extraterestrial life to exist in many and varied forms as required to evolve and survive on their particular rocks.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 15 2022, @07:09PM
One thing that requires suspension of disbelief to watch a story involving Narn, Centuari and Minbari is that they are all played by human actors. One head. Two arms, two legs, etc.
If it were real, I would have more in common with the tree in the front yard than I have in common with a Narn. After all, I at least am likely to have a common ancestor between the tree and myself.
Aliens evolved for life on their respective rocks might be very alien to us -- even if they have some common biochemical makeup.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday June 13 2022, @10:47PM (8 children)
All sorts of carbon containing molecules form when the basic elements are bathed in energy.
NASA is still looking into it ..
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/miller-urey-revisited/ [nasa.gov]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:28AM (7 children)
There was another experiment more recently (which I'm too lazy to hunt up) where they found that just stirring an appropriate chemical soup long enough sufficed to induce formation of DNA-like molecules, and that once the process got going, the resulting strands were all either right- or left-handed.
Finding amino acids on an asteroid says nothing about "Earth AA's came from space" unless they have identical chemical fingerprints.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:58AM (6 children)
Wow... didn't consider the enatiomer / chirality of these things!
This gets curiouser and curiouser!
Please post if you see that again. I did a search which leads to a lot more searches, and a lot of new things for me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday June 14 2022, @06:41AM (5 children)
Will do, if I find it. Yeah, was pretty neat. And my inner biochemist went, "Well, of course!" because once you have that type of molecule, the other traits follow. I'm reminded of the guy who researches how snowflakes form, and has manipulating them down to a fine art.
Another interesting paper I saw a while back: virus researchers wondering why they were seeing so many viral fragments... got to looking more closely, and found literally every space that isn't already full of something else was full of these proto-viral fragments.
Junk fills the space allotted, even in chemistry. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday June 14 2022, @07:55AM (4 children)
I got pointed to this...
https://www.icr.org/article/evolution-hopes-you-dont-know-chemistry-problem-wi/ [icr.org]
And still trying to fathom the complexity.
( It's written with a creationist bias, still doesn't affect my belief systems, as I believe both camps 100%, simultaneously.)
I am just so curious as to how such a design came into existence.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:41PM (2 children)
From a chemical POV, whatever chirality happens by chance first is going to select for more of same, simply because that's now the only way added pieces are able to fit. I'd hazard that in the very early days of the chemical soup, just as in the experiment I mentioned, there was both L and D chirality (as happens in the manufacture of some synthetic drugs; frex, levothyroxine) but by chance one handedness got ahead of the other, and that accelerated its selection, and here we are today, able to biochemically utilize one but not the other.
Whether it was purely chemistry and chance, or some higher power sticking in his finger and saying "I think I'll stir in that direction, why not?" (or more likely, "Well, that's interesting...") really makes no difference. :)
Oh! I have a car analogy! Consider slanted parking spaces. Once you have ONE laid out, the only reasonable way to fit more is to make all those in the same row slant the same direction and degree as the first. That way you get an orderly parking lot, and more cars (molecules) can flow in and out. But if the next one is randomly slanted the other direction, you get a traffic jam and nothing useful happens.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 15 2022, @01:59AM (1 child)
That's a very insightful car analogy.
I'll use that in my next round of discussion!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday June 15 2022, @02:17AM
Welcome! We can never have too many car analogies. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday June 15 2022, @07:16AM
There's never been a problem with spontaneous symmetry breaking, it happens all over the place, from the smallest (e.g. yang-mills guage theories) to the very macro level (e.g. ocean liner and tanker routes), but most importantly, in the scale most relevant - in crystalography and biochemistry. As soon as the existance of a bias can induce further preference for that bias, you'll get spontanious symmetry breaking - that's the science.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves