Earthly life could be the result of various materials brought by ‘alien attackers’.
The precious sample that the Japanese spacecraft once brought back from the asteroid Ryugu reveals new evidence about the alien origin of our planet as well as all creatures in the world.
The discovery was published in the journal Nature Astronomy by an international research team led by the University of Hawaii (USA) and Kyoto University (Japan).
Theo SciTech Daily, nitrogen compounds, such as ammonium salts, are abundant in matter produced in regions far from the Sun. But evidence of their transport to our planet is still poorly understood.
Ryugu is a near-Earth asteroid. So what happens to it could also provide this missing evidence.
Using electron microscopy, the team found that the surface of the Ryugu samples was covered with microscopic minerals including iron and nitrogen in the form of nitric iron (Fe4N).
Associate Professor Toru Matsumoto from Kyoto University, lead author of the study, said they proposed that extremely small micrometeorites containing ammonia compounds collided with Ryugu and caused chemical reactions with the original surface. full of magnetite iron oxide forming Fe4N.
Thus, it was micrometeorites that supplied nitrogen to the region where our primitive, monotonous planet resided.
Meanwhile, nitrogen compounds are a known building block of life, because nitrogen is a basic element often present in organic compounds.
To have real life, we need some other elements, such as carbon and phosphorus – things that have previously been shown to be brought by space rocks.
Thus, it can be said that the origin of today’s creatures is a rich collection of aliens.
When seeded on a world with the right conditions – including a stable environment, abundant water, moderate temperatures, a protective magnetosphere – the first life-giving reactions began to arise. .