Unlocking the secrets of the universe

A Japan-led international team of scientists recently published the first peer-reviewed scientific analysis of rocks taken from Ryugu, an asteroid orbiting the Sun.

🚀 Background: In December 2014, Japan launched a spacecraft that traveled nearly 2 billion miles before arriving at Ryugu in 2019, collecting a total of 5.4 grams of rock samples before turning back around.

• Upon returning to Earth in December 2020, the samples were distributed among various scientific groups, including one led by the Tokyo Institute of Technology (which authored the analysis).

☄️ What did they find?... The newly-published results suggest Ryugu is made from the same material that scientists theorize formed planets and the Sun a few billion years ago, called the solar nebula.

• The researchers also determined that Ryugu itself originated from a larger body that eventually smashed apart on impact with another asteroid.

🔬 Zoom out: A separate Japanese team in charge of chemically analyzing the Ryugu samples previously announced the discovery of more than 20 amino acids (aka the building blocks for life) at a scientific conference in March, raising the possibility that these molecules first came to Earth on comets and asteroids... so in theory, we're all aliens.😉