NASA reveals ‘incredible’ findings from asteroid that could explain origins of life on Earth
NASA has revealed its “incredible” findings from a sample that was scooped up from the surface of an asteroid and delivered to Earth by spacecraft.
The sample, ancient black dust and chunks, was collected from the carbon-rich asteroid named Bennu, almost 60 million miles away.
It is the largest ever returned to Earth.
NASA‘s Osiris-Rex spacecraft collected the samples three years ago and then dropped them off sealed in a capsule during a flyby of Earth last month.
Asteroid Bennu seen from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft. Pic: NASA/AP
Scientists hope it can shed light on the origin of the solar system and of life on Earth.
An Osiris-Rex sample analyst, Daniel Glavin, said during a news conference to reveal the material that the sample was “loaded with organics”.
“This is just incredible material,” he said.
“This stuff is an astrobiologist’s dream, I just can’t wait to get at it.”
The scientists have been investigating whether asteroids like Bennu seeded the Earth with pre-biotic chemicals.
Mr Glavin said: “We’re going to learn so much about the origin of the solar system, the evolution and potentially how even life started here on Earth.”
Dante Lauretta, Osiris-Rex principal investigator, said the different sized stones contained in the sample would provide invaluable information for scientists.
‘Something from space we have never seen in our laboratories’
“Something like that would not make it to the surface of the Earth as a meteorite,” he said.
“So to have something from space that we have never seen in our laboratories, there is nothing more exciting.”
Bennu is considered the most dangerous asteroid in the Solar System – although NASA has estimated its chances of actually hitting Earth in 2182 are remote, at just one in 2,700, or 0.037%.
Lori Glaze, director of the agency’s planetary science division, explained how the latest sample could help protect our planet from a catastrophic impact with a space object.
She said the mission allowed NASA to measure a small force created by the sun’s heat and an asteroid’s rotation – explaining this force was “really important for helping us to predict when a particular asteroid might be dangerous”.
A recovery team member examines a capsule containing NASA’s first asteroid samples before it is taken to a temporary clean room at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah
“What we really want to know is if an asteroid is going to cross over Earth’s orbit at the same time that we are in that place, and we want to not be in that place when an asteroid comes by,” she said.
Administrator Bill Nelson – explained the discovery was unprecedented.
“At nearly 5% carbon by weight, carbon being the central element of life, far exceeding our goal of 60g, this is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to earth,” he said.
Carbon and water molecules are “exactly the kind of material that we wanted to find”, Mr Nelson added.
“They are going to help us determine the origin of elements that could have led to life.”
A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector.
Pic:NASA/Reuters
Sky News Science Correspondent Thomas Moore explains what it all means.
So much material has been brought back from asteroid Bennu that it has spilled out of the collection cannister.
NASA scientists still haven’t got inside – they’ve been carefully sweeping together their “bonus sample” to make sure it’s not wasted.
It’s slowed them down, so they’ve only had time to do a basic analysis of the material in the fortnight or so since the capsule parachuted down to Utah’s western desert last month.
Results so far show that it is rich in carbon, an essential element for the organic molecules that are the building blocks of life.
And stunning high magnification images taken with an electron microscope reveal fibrous clay particles that contain water.
That adds to evidence that asteroids bombarding planet Earth billions of years ago brought water that formed the oceans, and also the seeds of life.
But this is just the start.
They now need to work out exactly what chemicals are in the sample.
Analysis of material brought back from another asteroid called Ryugu by a Japanese spacecraft revealed dozens of organic compounds, including amino acids that form proteins.
There was only a tiny amount of material brought back from Ryugu and scientists haven’t yet been able to detect any of the chemical ingredients for making RNA and DNA, the genetic codes of life on Earth.
But there is much more material brought back from Bennu.
Just over a quarter of the material will be analysed over the next two years by scientists at laboratories around the world, including a team at the Natural History Museum in London.
The rest will be preserved for future analysis, as NASA says, by scientists who haven’t been born yet using techniques that can only be imagined.
That might tell us more about our origins. But perhaps also give clues to how our planet formed.
Bennu is a window into the early days of the solar system, 4.5 billion years ago. It’s likely to have changed very little since it was formed from loose rubble orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
The planets would have been formed from the same material. But Bennu’s material is pristine, unchanged by the intense heat and pressure involved in making a planet.
You can sense the excitement of the scientists. They’ve had so many questions about our place in the Universe.
And with the Bennu sample they might start getting some answers.
World
Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador has been returned to face criminal charges
A man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration has been returned to the US to face criminal charges.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was charged in an indictment filed in federal court in Tennessee with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US, attorney general Pam Bondi said on Friday.
Court records have shown the indictment was filed on 21 May, more than two months after he was deported from the US under a controversial 18th-century wartime law.
US attorney general Pam Bondi, alongside her deputy Todd Blanche, outlined the charges at a news conference. Pic: AP
In a statement, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Andrew Rossman said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process.
“Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” he said.
Salvadoran Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported from Maryland despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
On Friday, Ms Bondi outlined the charges at a news conference, saying: “The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring.
“He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found – smuggling people throughout our country… MS-13 [international criminal gang] members, violent gang terrorist organisation members… throughout our country.
“He will be prosecuted in our country, sentenced in our country if convicted and then returned after completion of his sentence.”
Ms Bondi said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant.
Read more from Sky News:
Trump says Musk has ‘lost his mind’
Israel warns of new Gaza operation
Chris Van Hollen (R) speaks to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: Press Office Senator Van Hollen/AP
Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen travelled to El Salvador in April to meet Abrego Garcia, arguing his constitutional rights to due process were being ignored.
Critics of Donald Trump have pointed to the deportation of Abrego Garcia as an example of the excesses of the Republican president’s aggressive immigration policies.
US District Judge Paula Xinis has opened a probe into what, if anything, Mr Trump’s administration has done to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura (R) filed a legal complaint over the deportation of her husband. Pic: AP
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Officials responded by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyers have strongly denied.
In a separate statement, Pam Bondi also attacked what she called the “Fake News Media” and repeated the – yet unproven – allegations against Abrego Garcia.
“The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools.
“Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’- Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable.”
Senior White House officials will meet with a Chinese delegation in London on Monday for the next round of trade talks, US President Donald Trump has said.
The meeting comes after a phone call between Mr Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, which the US president said was “very positive” – lasting about an hour and a half.
Speaking to reporters on Friday from Air Force One, the president added that it was a “good talk”, describing the deal as “complicated”, but one that “will bring us a lot of money”.
He also said: “I get along well with Xi and China.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
US and China reach agreement on tariffs
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the upcoming London meeting “should go very well” and added that treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer would represent the US at the talks.
It is unclear who will represent China.
The two countries are at an impasse over tariffs and a dispute involving critical rare earth mineral exports, in which China remains the dominant producer.
On 12 May, China and the US struck a 90-day deal in Geneva to pause retaliatory tariffs placed on each other since Mr Trump was inaugurated in January.
The US president said the move was part of a “total reset” in relations.
The agreement prompted a global surge in stock markets and US indexes that were in, or approaching, bear market levels.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
US and China end trade war
The temporary deal saw the US reduce its 145% tariff to 30% on Chinese goods.
China also agreed to reduce its 125% retaliatory tariffs to 10% on US goods.
However, sector-specific tariffs, such as the 25% tax on cars, aluminium and steel, are still in place.
Read more from Sky News:
Trump says Musk has ‘lost his mind’
Beckham to be knighted in King’s Birthday Honours list
Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador returns to face criminal charges
👉 Follow Trump 100 on your podcast app 👈
The Chinese foreign ministry said the US president initiated the call, and they had asked him to “remove the negative measures” in place against China.
It also said that Mr Trump said “the US loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America”.
This is despite his administration previously saying it will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US.
Since Mr Trump’s re-election, the president has frequently issued threats of punitive trade measures against US partners, only to backtrack at the last minute.
World
Gaza marks start of Eid with outdoor prayers in rubble – as Israel warns of intensive new military operations
Israel has issued a fresh warning to civilians in northern Gaza, saying its military is about to carry out intensive operations there.
It comes after Israel said rockets were fired from the area.
Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip have marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays, amid little hope the conflict will end any time soon.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins, with men and children forced to hold the traditional Eid al Adha prayers in the open air, and as food supplies dwindle.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
UN: 500,000 are food insecure in Gaza
Food and aid were blocked from entering the Palestinian territory for more than two months, but a trickle of supplies has been allowed in over the last few weeks.
The UN said it cannot distribute much of the aid, due to the risk of looters and restrictions on movement.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis.
“There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses… The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia.
It is the second year Muslims in Gaza have been unable to travel to the country to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
Read more:
Bodies of husband and wife taken into Gaza now recovered
Hundreds of thousands ‘catastrophically food insecure’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israel confirms arming gangs to combat Hamas
The war broke out after the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants. Some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were abducted and taken to Gaza.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages, with a third of them believed to be alive. The rest have been released in ceasefire agreements, with forces rescuing eight living hostages from Gaza and recovering dozens of bodies.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Situation in Gaza ‘utterly intolerable’
Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its military campaign, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.
Around 90% of the population of two million has been displaced.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway