Connect with us

Published

2 years ago

on

Two organic compounds essential for living organisms have been found in samples retrieved from the asteroid Ryugu, buttressing the notion that some ingredients crucial for the advent of life arrived on Earth aboard rocks from space billions of years ago.

Scientists said on Tuesday they detected uracil and niacin in rocks obtained by the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft from two sites on Ryugu in 2019. Uracil is one of the chemical building blocks for RNA, a molecule carrying directions for building and operating living organisms. Niacin, also called Vitamin B3 or nicotinic acid, is vital for their metabolism.

The Ryugu samples, which looked like dark-gray rubble, were transported 155 million miles (250 million km) back to Earth and returned to our planet’s surface in a sealed capsule that landed in 2020 in Australia’s remote outback for analysis in Japan.

Scientists long have pondered about the conditions necessary for life to arise after Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The new findings fit well with the hypothesis that bodies like comets, asteroids and meteorites that bombarded early Earth seeded the young planet with compounds that helped pave the way for the first microbes.

Scientists previously detected key organic molecules in carbon-rich meteorites found on Earth. But there was the question of whether these space rocks had been contaminated by exposure to the Earth’s environment after landing.

“Our key finding is that uracil and niacin, both of which are of biological significance, are indeed present in extraterrestrial environments and they may have been provided to the early Earth as a component of asteroids and meteorites. We suspect they had a role in prebiotic evolution on Earth and possibly for the emergence of first life,” said astrochemist Yasuhiro Oba of Hokkaido University in Japan, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature Communications.

“These molecules on Ryugu were recovered in a pristine extraterrestrial setting,” Oba said. “It was directly sampled on the asteroid Ryugu and returned to Earth, and finally to laboratories without any contact with terrestrial contaminants.”

RNA, short for ribonucleic acid, would not be possible without uracil. RNA, a molecule present in all living cells, is vital in coding, regulation and activity of genes. RNA has structural similarities to DNA, a molecule that carries an organism’s genetic blueprint.

Niacin is important in underpinning metabolism and can help produce the “energy” that powers living organisms.

The researchers extracted uracil, niacin and some other organic compounds in the Ryugu samples by soaking the material in hot water and then performing analyses called liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry.

Organic astrochemist and study co-author Yoshinori Takano of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) said he is now looking forward to the results of analyses on samples being returned to Earth in September from another asteroid. The U.S. space agency NASA during its OSIRIS-REx mission collected samples in 2020 from the asteroid Bennu.

Oba said uracil and niacin were found at both landing sites on Ryugu, which is about a half-mile (900 meters) in diameter and is classified as a near-Earth asteroid. The concentrations of the compounds were higher at one of the sites than the other.

The sample from the site with the lower concentrations was derived from surface material more susceptible to degradation induced by energetic particles darting through space, Oba said. The sample from the other site was mainly derived from subsurface material more protected from degradation, Oba added.

Asteroids are rocky primordial bodies that formed in the early solar system. The researchers suggest that the organic compounds found on Ryugu may have been formed with the help of chemical reactions caused by starlight in icy materials residing in interstellar space.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company’s plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Science

Japan Launches Final H-2A Rocket with GOSAT-GW Satellite to Monitor Climate and Oceans

Published

13 hours ago

on

July 1, 2025

By

Japan Launches Final H-2A Rocket with GOSAT-GW Satellite to Monitor Climate and Oceans

Japan launched a satellite which is a dual purpose, for monitoring greenhouse gases and sea temperature. On Saturday, June 28, 2025, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) held its 50th and final launch of the H-2A rocket, launching the GOSAT-GW satellite of dual purpose to space. This mission lifted off from Ypshinobu Launch Complex (LP-1) in Japan at Tenegashima Space Centre at 10:03 p.m. IST. These satellites have been sent by Japan to observe the changes in water cycles and greenhouse gases.

JAXA’s Dual Purpose Satellite Launch

According to JAXA, the Greenhouse Gas and Water Cycle Observation Satellite (GOSA-GW) is a very recent and significant effort of Japan to know about the effect of greenhouse gases and the changes in the cycle of rain. GOSAT-GW has joined the orbit of Earth with GCOM-W2, which is its predecessor, and was launched in 2012, known as SHIZUKU, whereas GOSAT-1, launched in 2009, is known as IBUKI. It is equipped with two main instruments.

More About GOSAT-GW

GOSAT-GW is equipped with two main instruments, the first is called the Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMSR), and the other is known as the Greenhouse Gases Observation Sensor (TANSO). The former one will measure water cycles and sea surface temperature fluctuations, while the latter one is for monitoring components such as carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere for measuring climate change.

H-2A rocket of Japan has been capable of launching payloads into the geostationary orbit around Earth and also orbiting the Moon. JAXA also launched the Akatsuki spacecraft for studying Venus in 2010; however, the spacecraft failed to enter the orbit of Venus properly.

Japan’s Successful Launch Operations

JAXA launched H-2A for the first time in 2001. With its 25 years in operation, the rocket experienced only a single failure, giving the spacecraft a 98% success rate. After 50 missions, the launch vehicle is now being retired to make way for the H3 rocket of Japan, offering comparable performance at a very reasonable cost.

Continue Reading

Science

SpaceX Launches 53 Starlink Satellites in One Day, Crossing 7,900 Active Units

Published

13 hours ago

on

July 1, 2025

By

SpaceX Launches 53 Starlink Satellites in One Day, Crossing 7,900 Active Units

On June 28, 2025, two Falcon 9 rockets carrying the internet satellite broadband connection lifted off at 12:26 a.m. and 1:13 p.m. EDT. The first one was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and another from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The new addons for megaconsellation of SpaceX (Group 10-34 and Group 15-7) reached low orbit Earth about 9 minutes after leaving the ground and were deployed after an hour.

According to As per NASA, in the intervening time, the first stage of the Falcon rockets (boosters B1092 and B1088) flew back to the droneships. The landing was on “A Shortfall of Gravitas, “ completing the fifth flight of the boosters. The stage touched down on “Of Course I Still Love You”, with its eighth flight to space and back, in the Pacific Ocean.

The launch at early morning carries 27 Starlink Satellites and the afternoon liftoff lofted 26 more of the relay satellites, vasting the network of SpaceX to more than 7,900 active units, said by satellite tracker Jonathan Mc Dowell.

Broader Deployment Context

The launch in the morning was delayed earlier that day because of the severe weather alerts at Florida, but flew in the near perfect conditions at the visibility of 10 miles. Throughout 2025, SpaceX heald 42 Falcon 9 missions with 28 Starlink launched by June. by mid-June the batch of 26 satellites launched from Vandenberg (Booster B1081’s 15th flight) which contributed to more than 7,600 active satellites by June 12.

Both the missions are a part of an aggressive Starlink deployment, mainly for boosting the low Earth orbit constellation for the global broadband coverage. Now the network expands to approximately 7900 satellites, focusing on the biggest LEO broadband constellation ever.

Continue Reading

Science

Astronomers Discover a Gigantic Supernova Remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Published

13 hours ago

on

July 1, 2025

By

Astronomers Discover a Gigantic Supernova Remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Astronomers international team has employed various satellites and telescopes for performing multiwavelength observations of a supernova remnant known as SNR J0450.4-7050. The result that scientists got after an observational campaign, published on June 18, 2025, on the preprint server arXiv, gained new insights into the properties of this remnant, and observed that it is much larger than thought in the past. Supernova remnants (SNRs) are expanded structures resulting from the explosion of a supernova. It usually lasts for several hundred thousand years before the time it disperses into the interstellar medium.

Multiwavelength Observations Reveal New Details of SNR J0450.4-7050

As per the study by NASA, observations by the scientists indicate that SNRs contain the ejected expansion of material from the explosion and other interstellar material swept by the passage of the shockwave from the star that exploded. SNR studies beyond the Milky Way are important for comprehending the feedback in different evolutionary phases and gaining valuable insights into the local ISM. The Large Magellanic Cloud is the galaxy that has its SNR population explored in depth.

Importance of Studying Supernova Remnants Beyond the Milky Way

The recent observations reveal that SNR J0450.4-7050, a large supernova remnant in the LMC having physical dimensions of 332 by 244 light years, is estimated to have the remnants of around 45,000 years old. Scientists named it Veliki, which means large in Serbian. It also showcases the complex filamentary morphology with different inner and outer shell structures.

Discovery of Veliki: A Large, Aged Remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud

An astronomer’s group led by Zachary J. Smeaton decided to take a closer observation of SNR J0450.4−7050 by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and MeerKAT radio telescope. The SNR showed a high radial surface brightness with one of the lowest average radio spectral indices, with similar remnants.

Unusual Radio Properties Suggest Veliki is a Fully Radiative SNR

These unusual features, according to the scientists, give the prediction that Veliki is mainly a radiative SNR with a high shock compression ratio. This states about the non-thermal spectrum and higher surface brightness and emissions. Further observations of the surrounding environment are needed to confirm the hypothesis with an understanding of the remnants’ nature in a better way.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.


FBC: Firebreak Has Crossed One Million Players, Remedy Confirms



Evol Now Streaming on Aha Tamil: Everything You Need to Know About This Tamil Romantic Thriller

Related Stories

Continue Reading

Trending