Asteroid Sample Retrieval Mission Rivals That Of Japan - But Can NASA Keep Up With DOGE Lurking In Background?

 

Asteroid Bennu - from which samples were taken

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Osiris-Rex mission  -launched back in 2016 - has since returned from the asteroid Bennu, with a sample laden with amino acids.  (Those are the building blocks of life.)  The achievement can now be said to rival the earlier Hayabusa mission of Japan:

One Of A Kind Hayabusa 2 Probe To Asteroid Makes Amino Acid Discovery - After Dropping Sample In Australian Outback

The NASA -sponsored craft scraped the surface of the asteroid in 2020, scooping up just over 2 ounces (roughly the amount of a bar of soap) of rock and dust which included sodium salts highlighted in the photo underneath the asteroid's image.  The craft then departed Bennu and swung past Earth 3 years later, dropping a sealed capsule containing the material in the Utah desert.  The capsule and its landing spot are shown below:

                                   Bennu capsule - landed in Utah desert with sample

In the manner of asteroid approach and sample retrieval the mission actually resembled the earlier Japanese mission, captured in the graphic below:

Japanese asteroid sample retrieval mission - resembling NASA's Bennu mission

In the case of Bennu, a glob of rubble that formed 4.5 billion years ago, researchers examining the recovered sample found 14 of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins.  They also found all five molecules that comprise RNA and DNA in mineral deposits of salty brine on the asteroid surface.  That sample is shown below:

                           Sodium salts portion of retrieved Bennu asteroid sample

The findings were published last Wednesday in two papers:

Abundant ammonia and nitrogen-rich soluble organic matter in samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu | Nature Astronomy

And:

An evaporite sequence from ancient brine recorded in Bennu samples | Nature

The process of analysis itself was done at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, MD.  There, tiny chips of the asteroid sample were ground into a fine powder, then made into a 'Bennu tea'  by boiling it in water.  This allowed the researchers to extract and identify the organic compounds - this according to Jason Dworkin a co-author of a paper published in Nature Astronomy. 

The question now - among all of us who pursue astronomy and space - is how long before such missions become extinct in the new DOGE era of axing agencies.  Will DOGE find the billions allocated to NASA too "wasteful". If so, will DOGE and Musk's coder Muskrats take a wrecking ball to the agency and let all its researchers join the breadlines?  We will have to wait and see, but the early signs - like the destruction of the Dept. Of Education- do not look promising.

See Also:

Asteroid fragments upend theory of how life on Earth bloomed

And:

NASA's Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals Mix of Life's Ingredients