Samples recovered from billions-year-old asteroid could shine light on the start of life on Earth

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NASA scientists have discovered organic content in the samples recovered from the asteroid Bennu, which points back to the start of our solar system.

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00:00NASA scientists studying the asteroid sample retrieved from space are announcing some early

00:06findings.

00:07The OSIRIS-REx project brought the sample from the asteroid Bennu to Earth in 2023.

00:13Dr. Scott Stanford is a NASA research scientist and a member of this team.

00:19What have you all discovered about the contents of the asteroid sample and what known elements

00:23have been identified?

00:26Well, the papers that we released yesterday talk about two things.

00:31One is some of the minerals we found in the samples that tell us something about the nature

00:35of water and the action of water on the parent body.

00:39And then also, we had a paper on the organics that we found in the sample.

00:44In terms of the elements found, the atomic elements where, you know, the asteroid's made

00:48of the same elements the Earth is made of, but what's different is the nature of the

00:52minerals and the molecules, how those atoms are arranged.

00:56And there's a lot of buzz about this.

00:58Dr. Stanford, how are these materials clues to the quote-unquote building blocks of life?

01:04Well, the organics are obviously one of the reasons we went.

01:10They're fascinating because presumably objects like this asteroid provided some of the material

01:15from which the Earth was made.

01:17And so organics in them tell us something about the kinds of compounds that would have

01:21been present on the early Earth.

01:22And in some cases, the molecules we're seeing in the samples are the kinds of molecules

01:27that are used in modern life now.

01:28And so they may have played a role in getting life started on the early Earth.

01:33So that's, and so we want, you know, this is one of the advantages of these samples

01:36is they date back to the very beginning of the solar system and they tell us what some

01:40of the very first stuff that would have ended up on the Earth looked like.

01:43Yeah, this asteroid is four and a half billion years old.

01:47So tell us a little bit more about the secrets that we could learn about our solar system

01:51from it.

01:52Yeah, well, being old is important because you can't tell much about the early Earth

01:58by looking at things that are on the Earth now because the Earth is constantly changing.

02:01We have volcanoes and weather and everything else.

02:03And so there are no rocks on the Earth that are as old as the Earth.

02:07But rocks from asteroid Bennu date back to the very beginning of the solar system.

02:13And then they haven't really been changed that much since the very earliest days.

02:17And so they tell us what the starting material is like, not what things are like after they've

02:23evolved on a planet for four and a half billion years.

02:27So what are some of the next steps?

02:28What further experiments are planned with the asteroid sample?

02:32Well, I can tell you some of those.

02:34I mean, we'll definitely be looking at more in more detail at the organics and at the

02:38minerals.

02:39But one of the advantages of sample return missions like OSIRIS-REx is much of the sample

02:44isn't studied immediately.

02:46It's archived in a curatorial facility in Houston, and then it's available for scientists

02:51to study into the future.

02:53And so there may be people who aren't even born yet who will ultimately discover things

02:57from these samples.

02:59So I can't actually tell you everything that's in the future for this because some of it

03:03will happen after I'm gone.

03:06Pretty interesting stuff.

03:07That is very interesting.

03:09Dr. Scott Sanford with NASA, thanks so much for joining us.

03:13You're welcome.

03:14I'm glad to make it.

03:15Absolutely.

03:16Well, we're glad to talk to you.

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