Ryugu Sampling – JAXA
Oct. 21 () –
Samples brought back from the asteroid Ryugu by the Japanese mission Hayabusa 2 They suggest that both this object and one of the rarer groups of meteorites originate in the same region of space.
Carbonaceous chondrites, like the Winchcombe meteorite that fell to Earth and was recovered in Gloucestershire, England in 2021, are an extremely rare group of meteorites known to they contain organic compounds and amino acids, ingredients for life.
They are the most primitive and pristine materials in the solar system and can provide unique insights into where water and the building blocks of life formed, and what planets are made of.
In a study published in Science Advancesscientists conclude that Ryugu, now a near-Earth object, was among the group of asteroids known as type Cb that formed billions of kilometers from Earth, toward the edge of the sun’s influence, in a region of space like the Kuiper belt, or maybe even deeper in space.
Professor Sara Russell, co-author of the research and scientist at the Natural History Museum, says it’s a statement: “Only in the last decade have we begun to appreciate how far objects in the solar system can move to and from the sun.”
“While there is general acceptance that the giant planets could have moved in material from the outer solar system, this is one of the first studies to suggest that the asteroid belt contains material originating as far away as Neptune. This adds an extra layer of detail to our knowledge of how the solar system formed.”
The group set out to investigate whether Cb-type asteroids, such as Ryugu, could be the main body of a rare group of meteorites known as CI chondrites. Meteorites are key to helping us understand the solar system, however their scientific value is restricted if the location of their formation is not known. By determining where they originated, its potential to answer some of the most important questions asked by the scientific community is maximized.
The findings suggest that both Ryugu and CI chondrites originate from the same region of space, and it cannot be ruled out that they may even share the same parent body.
Professor Russell continues: “By comparing the forms of iron in both asteroids and meteorites, we learned that Ryugu closely matches CI chondrites.”
