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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


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Hubble Unveils Dark Matter Web in Stunning Abell 209 Galaxy Cluster Image

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Hubble Unveils Dark Matter Web in Stunning Abell 209 Galaxy Cluster Image

NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope has released a striking new picture of the large galaxy cluster Abell 209, 2.8 billion light-years from us in the Cetus constellation. The enormous cluster contains over 100 galaxies held together by gravity, but what is seen is only half the tale. Underneath the shining galaxies is a tangled web of unseen scaffolding—hot, diffuse gas and a vast amount of dark matter. Although invisible, these elements define the universe through their gravitational pull. The strong lenses of Hubble enable scientists to study these invisible elements and the twisted spacetime that they create.

Technological advancement

According to NASA website, the new image was taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Twelve exposures taken through different color filters were combined to make the full view. The final picture has a golden glow from dozens of bright elliptical galaxies clustering at the center, along with a few blue spiral galaxies at the edges. , Hubble avoids Earth’s blur to make distant galaxies appear pinpoint-sharp . In visible light, the largest galaxies appear as smooth golden orbs, while the spiral galaxies shine a faint blue. Hubble demonstrates a technological brilliance by merging optical and infrared data into one striking cosmic portrait.

Scientific revealations

Hubble scientists say images like this can help answer fundamental questions about dark matter and dark energy. The space between Abell 209’s galaxies is laced with X-ray–hot gas and dominated by dark matter. Only about 5% of the cosmos is ordinary matter; roughly 25% is dark matter and 70% is dark energy.

A massive cluster acts like a natural lens: its gravity slightly warps the light from more distant galaxies. In the Hubble image, a few faint background galaxies appear stretched into curved streaks. By measuring these distortions, scientists can map the cluster’s total mass (including dark matter). This lets them test theories about how the universe has grown under the influence of dark matter and dark energy

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Magnetic Wave Detection Uncovers Elusive Lithium in Mercury’s Thin Exosphere

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Magnetic Wave Detection Uncovers Elusive Lithium in Mercury’s Thin Exosphere

Using a new technique based on magnetic-wave analysis, scientists have, for the first time, discovered lithium in the atmosphere of Mercury. Published in Nature Communications, the study constitutes the first detection of lithium around the smallest planet in our solar system. The exosphere of Mercury, Unlike thickened atmospheres, the thin shell of particles that constitutes Mercury’s exosphere can render direct searching methods inadequate. Instead of searching for atoms, scientists analysed pick-up ion cyclotron waves—an electromagnetic fingerprint left behind when solar wind interacts with freshly ionised lithium. These faint signals finally confirmed lithium’s long-speculated presence.

MESSENGER Data Reveals Lithium Traces from Meteoroid Impacts in Mercury’s Exosphere

As per the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the research team led by Daniel Schmid reviewed four years of magnetic field data collected by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. Twelve short-lived events—each lasting mere minutes—revealed these lithium-specific wave signatures.

The waves are generated when solar ultraviolet radiation ionises lithium atoms, and temporary lithium wind blows the ionised atoms into space, which increases the speed of the formation of electromagnetic instabilities. These perturbations induce oscillations at a single cyclotron frequency, determined by the mass and charge of lithium (such that it is identified as lithium indirectly by magnetic measurements).

Lithium has been difficult to find, as the rare alkali metal is thinly scattered. The traditional particle detectors on Mariner 10 and MESSENGER couldn’t directly capture it. The most likely candidate is meteoroid impacts, which would cause heated vapour clouds in the collision and throw lithium into the exosphere.

Mercury’s surface is continuously replenished by extraterrestrial bombardment, according to a study linking detected events to meteoroid strikes by objects 13-21 centimetres in radius. These high-speed collisions can vaporise up to 150 times their own mass, endowing the atmosphere with volatiles such as lithium.

Schmid’s study reveals that such processes could also account for the retention or acquisition of volatile elements in other airless bodies, which would transform our understanding of the geochemical story of Mercury and open up new steps in exosphere exploration.

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Indian Scientists Unravel the Mystery Behind Rare Aurora Over Ladakh

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Indian Scientists Unravel the Mystery Behind Rare Aurora Over Ladakh

In a village in Ladakh, there was experienced an eruption in the sky which turned the sky into red and green auroras on May 10, 2024. This has not been seen in the past 10 years. It got triggered by the fiery solar storm, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) which are magnetised and thrown from the Sun at a million km per hour distance. Such arruptions in masses, triggered by the filament eruptions and solar flames sped to millions of kilometer towards our planet. This kind of rare aura has been ignited from the fiery solar storm.

Indian Scientists Investigate

According to organiser, The indian scientists’ team, led by Dr. Wageesh Mishra, used the data from NASA, ESA and other ground facilities to find this auroral phenomenon at the Indian Astronomical Observatory, by applying the Flux Rope Internal State (FRIS) model in order to broaden the coronograph images. The evolving temperature, magnetic fields and structure of the Coronal Mass Ejections were mapped at the time of interplanetary journey. This is the first global study to chronicle CME thermal dynamics from the Sun to Earth, which is published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Unexpected Reheating of CMEs

In contrast to the expectations, the CMEs didn’t cool with their expansion. In fact, they heat up at their midway, absorbing heat and maintaining a constant temperature over time they impact Earth. This thermal restructuring is due to the collision of two CMEs, where the electrons release high temperatures and ions release mixed lower and higher temperatures predominantly.

Magnetic Collision Triggers Lights

Data from NASA’s Wind Spacecraft, when a solar storm reached Earth, shows that the plasma covered Earth in double flux ropes. These are twisted magnetic structures which can trigger potential geomagnetic disturbances. Such an entangled magnetic field brought auroras as far south. i.e. Ladakh, and produces a spectacular light show that was seen by the citizens of that place.

Global Impact and Research Breakthrough

This finding held significant implications for global space weather forecasting and India. Through the understanding of the interaction of CMEs’ thermal and magnetic changes, the scientists could better develop the early-warning systems for power grid issues, navigation outages and satellite disruptions.

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