Danish: An impressive discovery, asteroid samples containing organic molecules from the ocean | Liberalism

It was of great importance that the Chairman of the Cyprus Space Exploration Organization (CSEO) George Danosthe news that is in Samples from asteroid Bennu Various organic molecules were discovered indicating that this asteroid originated from a planet with oceans, which may indicate that this planet was also hosting life.

It is noteworthy that samples from the asteroid Bennu, located hundreds of millions of kilometers away, returned to Earth in 2023 after a mission that began seven years ago with the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The spacecraft made a two-year journey to reach the asteroid in 2018, where it collected samples of dust and rocks.

Scientists believe that asteroids like Bennu They can tell us more about the origins of our planet and where Earth's water first came from.

A team from the University of Arizona, studying a very small sample of Bennu's rock, believes that the asteroid may have originally come from an ocean world.

Organic molecules indicate a type of life

“This announcement is of particular interest because it shows that the origin of this asteroid is not only from a planet or satellite that has oceans but also… This satellite or planet may have contained life because we found a lot of organic molecules within the samples which makes it particularly impressive. It needs further study, it is a unique event,” Mr. Danos emphasized.

“There is a strong possibility – no one can say with absolute knowledge – that they came from a world with life. We can't say with certainty that it had life, but when samples show different organic molecules normally associated with life processes, they show that Mr. Danos confirmed that he is from a world that contains many organic compounds capable of supporting life, or that he already had life, but what kind of life this is is unknown.

He pointed out that the next steps are to conduct more research in universities and research centers in Japan, Europe and others. In order to study these samples in depth.

He said that some samples will be kept in special places for the future when this is done The technology will be more advanced, giving us greater possibility to conduct a more detailed study to obtain better conclusions.

He estimated that a second mission to the asteroid may have to be carried out to collect more samples.

We are getting closer to declaring that we are not alone in the universe

Danos said that every time such discoveries are made, “we are getting closer and closer to the moment when we will announce that we are not alone – at least bacteria – in the universe.”

He assessed that it was very likely that MsAnd the planet Mars gives us the answer to the question: Are we alone in the universe?

“We may make other discoveries, for example, from Mars, which also has some interesting data from the rover called Reseverance that is conducting research on the Red Planet. One mission will return samples to Earth from ancient river and lake sediments on Mars.”

He added that we do not know when, perhaps in the next two or five years, “we will learn that we are not alone in the universe, at least in bacterial form.”

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