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Are we all aliens? NASA's returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients of life from a watery world

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Are we all aliens? NASA's returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients of life from a watery world
News

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Are we all aliens? NASA's returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients of life from a watery world

2025-01-30 09:31 Last Updated At:09:41

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.

The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost right from the start.

"That's the kind of environment that could have been essential to the steps that lead from elements to life,” said the Smithsonian Institution’s Tim McCoy, one of the lead study authors.

NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams (4 ounces) of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after another space rock. It remains the biggest cosmic haul from beyond the moon. The two previous asteroid sample missions, by Japan, yielded considerably less material.

Small amounts of Bennu’s precious black grains — leftovers from the solar system's formation 4.5 billion years ago — were doled out to the two separate research teams whose studies appeared in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. But it was more than enough to tease out the sodium-rich minerals and confirm the presence of amino acids, nitrogen in the form of ammonia and even parts of the genetic code.

Some if not all of the delicate salts found at Bennu — similar to what’s in the dry lakebeds of California’s Mojave Desert and Africa’s Sahara — would be stripped away if present in falling meteorites.

“This discovery was only possible by analyzing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth," the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yasuhito Sekine, who was not involved in the studies, said in an accompanying editorial.

Combining the ingredients of life with an environment of sodium-rich salt water, or brines, “that’s really the pathway to life,” said McCoy, the National Museum of Natural History's curator of meteorites. “These processes probably occurred much earlier and were much more widespread than we had thought before."

NASA’s Daniel Glavin said one of the biggest surprises was the relatively high abundance of nitrogen, including ammonia. While all of the organic molecules found in the Bennu samples have been identified before in meteorites, Glavin said the ones from Bennu are valid — “real extraterrestrial organic material formed in space and not a result of contamination from Earth.”

Bennu — a rubble pile just one-third of a mile (one-half of a kilometer) across — was originally part of a much larger asteroid that got clobbered by other space rocks. The latest results suggest this parent body had an extensive underground network of lakes or even oceans, and that the water evaporated away, leaving behind the salty clues.

Sixty labs around the world are analyzing bits of Bennu as part of initial studies, said the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the mission’s chief scientist who took part in both studies.

Most of the $1 billion mission's cache has been set aside for future analysis. Scientists stress more testing is needed to better understand the Bennu samples, as well as more asteroid and comet sample returns. China plans to launch an asteroid sample return mission this year.

Many are pushing for a mission to collect rocks and dirt from the potentially waterlogged dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus also beckon as enticing water worlds. Meanwhile, NASA has core samples awaiting pickup at Mars, but their delivery is on hold while the space agency studies the quickest and cheapest way to get them here.

“Are we alone?" McCoy said. "That’s one of the questions we’re trying to answer.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Recovery team members carry a capsule containing NASA's first asteroid samples to a temporary clean room at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah on Sept. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, file)

FILE - Recovery team members carry a capsule containing NASA's first asteroid samples to a temporary clean room at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah on Sept. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, file)

FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, the sample return capsule from NASA's Osiris-Rex mission lies on the ground shortly after touching down in the desert, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023. (Keegan Barber/NASA via AP, file)

FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, the sample return capsule from NASA's Osiris-Rex mission lies on the ground shortly after touching down in the desert, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023. (Keegan Barber/NASA via AP, file)

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's government adopted on Tuesday new decarbonization targets aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70% from 2013 levels over the next 15 years, approving a renewed energy plan to help meet the goal.

This is part of an updated climate plan expected to help the country achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Here is what to know about the Japanese climate goals:

Under the new climate plan adopted by the Cabinet, Japan aims to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2035 from the 2013 levels, and by 73% by 2040. Japan has previously set a 46% reduction target for 2030.

The goals are known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, under the Paris Agreement, and will be submitted to the United Nations.

The 2035 target for Japan, still struggling to reduce its fossil fuel reliance has faced criticism from environmental groups because it is still 6 points short of the reduction needed to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels under the Paris Agreement.

The plan replaces the current version set in 2021 and calls for bolstering renewables up to half of electricity needs by 2040 while maximizing the use of nuclear power to accommodate the growing power demand in the era of AI while meeting decarbonization targets.

It marks an end to Japan's nuclear energy phaseout policy adopted after the 2011 meltdown crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant that led to extensive displacement of residents and lingering anti-nuclear sentiment.

The new energy plan says that nuclear power should account for 20% of Japan’s energy supply in 2040 while expanding renewables to 40-50% from nearly 23% and reducing coal-fired power to 30-40% from nearly 70%.

The current plan set a 20-22% target for nuclear energy, 36-38% for renewables, and 41% for fossil fuel, for 2030.

The energy plan places renewables as the main power source and calls for the development of next-generation energy sources, such as solar batteries and portable solar panels.

Difficult, given the slow and cautious pace of screening by the nuclear regulators and persistent safety concerns and opposition by the residents in the neighboring communities. In order to achieve a 20% target, almost all 33 workable reactors need to be restarted. Nuclear energy accounted for just 8.5% of Japan's power supply in 2023, with only 13 reactors currently online.

The plan calls for acceleration of the restarts of reactors that meet the post-Fukushima safety standards and proposes the construction of next-generation reactors — at plants where existing reactors are being decommissioned.

The International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi was at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world's largest in the country's northcentral prefecture of Niigata on Tuesday, becoming the first IAEA chief to do so.

Grossi was there to ensure the safety of the plant as it prepared to restart two of its seven reactors that had passed the safety test following a series of safeguarding problems.

The government is pushing for a restart under its energy and climate plans, while a restart would also help improve business for the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, struggling with the massive cost of decommissioning the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi.

A restart is still uncertain because of safety concerns among the residents in the plant's host towns.

FILE - Smoke billows from an oil refinery in Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, on Oct. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

FILE - Smoke billows from an oil refinery in Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, on Oct. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

Wind turbines are seen in Rokkasho village, Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan on Nov. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Wind turbines are seen in Rokkasho village, Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan on Nov. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

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