JAXA: Soil from asteroid shows it has ingredients for creating life
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The Ryugu asteroid’s soil contains enough hydrogen atoms to make a large quantity of water and molecules of organic substances that can be ingredients for life, according to analysis of samples returned to Earth by the Hayabusa 2.
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced the discovery on June 17 at a news conference it held prior to starting a full-scale analysis of the soil samples brought back by the space probe.
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The discovery is expected to assist in investigating the theory that the elements that created life on Earth arrived from space.
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Eizo Nakamura, a specially appointed professor at Okayama University, announced the findings as a result of an initial analysis of the soil samples.
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JAXA has cataloged the soil samples brought back by Hayabusa 2 last December, by size, color and shape.
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From now, 269 researchers from 14 countries, including Japan and the United States, will conduct an in-depth analysis of the soil’s structures and components over the course of about a year.
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Nakamura said that a large number of hydrogen atoms, believed to have constituted water molecules, were discovered in soil collected from and below the surface of Ryugu. Hayabusa 2 collected the underground soil samples by blasting an artificial crater on the asteroid.
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Regarding the molecules of organic substances that were also discovered, Nakamura said, “We will clarify what sorts of organic materials they are and their specific kinds in scientific papers later.”
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