Sugars, Gum, Stardust Found in NASA's Asteroid Bennu Samples

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/osiris-rex/sugars-gum-stardust-found-in-nasas-asteroid-bennu-samples/

by jnord • 8 months ago

134 55 8 months ago

voidUpdate• 8 months ago

The title probably wants the original quotes put back in

cnnlives86• 8 months ago

As I’ve been reading findings of extraterrestrial organic molecules recently, I wonder: do we know there was no contamination?

I’m going to be sad if it turns out someone sneezed into it and was afraid to tell their manager.

soco• 8 months ago

I think the article does a good job clarifying in simple words those questions risen by the slightly click-baity title.

reactordev2• 8 months ago

”Once soft and flexible, but since hardened, this ancient “space gum” consists of polymer-like materials extremely rich in nitrogen and oxygen. Such complex molecules could have provided some of the chemical precursors that helped trigger life on Earth”

That would be some stale big league chew if that were the case. By orders of billions of years. Making it the oldest wad of big league chew we know of in existence. ;)

foxyv• 8 months ago

I'm almost certain that the gum in baseball cards originated from the big bang.

IAmBroom2• 8 months ago

"I will assume that the experts involved have not taken any reasonable precautions, and learned nothing from the past 60 years of acquired experience in space exploration. I will then ask other non-experts in the field if the experts are minimally competent or not."

gblargg• 8 months ago

I was thinking the same as parent while reading this. Mentally this activates the same thinking as on those medical tests with a high false positive rate and low incidence, so that most positives are false. I'd like to see in the article how they rule this out. Ideally I'd like to hear that they have measures in place that would allow accidental lapses in isolation to fail and they'd still be able to tell that it was Earth contamination. It's a reasonable concern and having it addressed (with something more satisfying than "they're experts, duh!") makes this kind of finding all the more interesting.

sriram_malhar• 8 months ago

Spot on.

"I'm just asking questions".

Normal_gaussian• 8 months ago

There are papers covering contamination prevention and detection for every stage of the mission. There are papers with the designs and intentions before launch and papers with how well it went and their specific findings after return.

Here is one sick paper covering some of the clean rooms https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20230005897

tedd4u• 8 months ago

Awesome -- dozens of the top people in their fields have been working on the contamination problem and publishing about it for almost two decades.

    The curation team was integrated with mission design and operations from the beginning,
    as early as 2004 (section 3.0). That integration allowed curation-specific needs such as
    contamination knowledge to be incorporated into the mission design early, when adjustments had
    minimal cost impact. Not only did this early integration inform planning for sample
    characterization, cataloging, allocation, and the development of detailed sample handling and
    containment approaches; it was also an investment in the longer term needs of the community.
    Here we describe these preparations for OSIRIS-REx, as a reference for sample scientists and
    curators and as a model for future sample return missions.

gus_massa• 8 months ago

Most organic molecules are different from it's mirrored version, and living thing usually produce only one version. But inorganic reactions produce an even mix of 50% and 50%. So in most cases it's easy to spot.

Also, some sugars or amino acids are very common here and others very rare, and the commet probably has another mix.

Also, the ammount of isotopes of the atoms (like Carbon 14) is probably different.

jagged-chisel• 8 months ago

… gum-like material […] was likely formed in the early days of the solar system
… consists of polymer-like materials extremely rich in nitrogen and oxygen.

IAmBroom2• 8 months ago

Asteroids sound delicious!

HPsquared• 8 months ago

Come to think of it, quite a lot of sugary treats have space-themed names. Milky Way, Mars, Starburst, Orbit gum... I'm sure there are others.

arisAlexis• 8 months ago

i always wanted to chew some asteroid

macrolime• 8 months ago

So it's made of extraterrestrial bubblegum, got it.

snapdeficit2• 8 months ago

I know one theory proposes comets seeded earth with essential materials. But what seeded comets?? It’s just chance with extra steps, no?

malfist• 8 months ago

The big bang did. And following it, supernovae. But there's a lot we don't know and science is always advancing!

For example, JWST observed early galaxies are both larger and more diverse materials than we expected. Means there's something new to learn!

gaoshan• 8 months ago

When Carl Sagan said, "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself" he was poetically accurate. The comets are seeded with the remains of untold countless exploded stars.

anechouapechou• 8 months ago

There's a theory that at the very beginnings of the universe, as it cooled down, there was a period where the average temperature of the universe was between 0-100º C, meaning the whole universe was within a "habitable" temperature range, and this could have supercharged the creation of the building blocks of life. I think I learned about it on a Veritasium video... Maybe someone knows which one? :)

Retric• 8 months ago

Veritasium videos are often extremely misleading. In this case the cooling universe lacked carbon for these organic compounds. Life cares about 0-100c because of water which depends on Oxygen would be missing etc.

Just as example in one video he refers to the field outside of the wire carrying the energy for electricity, however EM waves propagate at the speed of light and fall off at the square of distance. Electricity can travel thousands of miles without that kind of falloff but doesn’t propagate as fast because it’s electron density in the wires that causes what we think of as electricity. He then setups up an antenna and … well you get the idea.

tsimionescu• 8 months ago

A "habitable" temperature range, without water and carbon, would be entirely meaningless.

lorenzohess• 8 months ago

God

mollusc-engine• 8 months ago

Wait till you hear about God!

snapdeficit2• 8 months ago

God is just an extra step. If you assume god existed forever and nobody created her, then why not just accept that the universe existed forever and cut out the middle-deity.

antonvs2• 8 months ago

It's sorting and mixing. Comets, asteroids, and planets all had different factors governing their formation (sorting). When comets or asteroids hit planets, you get a mixture of those different compositions.

Mikhail_K• 8 months ago

What, sugars and gum, but no sandwich wrappers?

airstrike• 8 months ago

Bennu is just the perfect brand name for space gummy bears

troyvit• 8 months ago

Space gummy tardigrades (because they can survive in space and their nickname is "water bear")!

socketcluster• 8 months ago

So they found some sticky unidentified alien slime on an asteroid... This sounds like something straight out of an alien movie.

stronglikedan• 8 months ago

Who doesn't like sugars and gum? It's the perfect alien incubation delivery mechanism! I wonder which will be the first scientist to get their chest popped...

vatsachak• 8 months ago

Aren't we starting to figure out that life (self-organization) is the most likely outcome for planets with our conditions? Maybe "our conditions" are also too strong of a requirement

Check out Blaise Arcas on MLST and Nick Land on Dwarkesh. Self organization might just be the second law of thermodynamics in action

AIorNot• 8 months ago

Yeah or Mike Levin

https://youtu.be/5MQq4n2QrNw?si=a7gFLLgQL1Soq0mt

dylan6045• 8 months ago

"planets with our conditions" is doing a lot of work here.

how many planets meet that criteria? most of the closest have typcially been labeled "super Earths" so their gravity will be greater than 1g. what effect will that have?

ASalazarMX3• 8 months ago

If life has adapted to the crushing pressure of deep ocean, I have hopes that it can adapt to not-so-crushing gravity. I'm sure a lot of our current life could adapt if our gavity was doubled. I'd feel sorry for birds, though.

antonvs2• 8 months ago

It figures. The universe is held together by bubble gum and strings.

dylan6045• 8 months ago

the fact it is called string theory suggests it's just an idea and not known

procflora• 8 months ago

Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!

thedrexster• 8 months ago

An eternal classic, brother, well done!

Beijinger• 8 months ago

Big claims. Solid names.

"“All five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA, along with phosphates, have already been found in the Bennu samples brought to Earth by OSIRIS-REx,” said Furukawa. “The new discovery of ribose means that all of the components to form the molecule RNA are present in Bennu.”"

Let's hope it is not a contamination.

metalman• 8 months ago

sugars,gum, and stardust? so like, somehow,teenage girls have been getting off the planet and hanging around in space and leaving a mess behind, bet it has that wierd artificial cotton candy smell

Sugars, Gum, Stardust Found in NASA's Asteroid Bennu Samples

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