…before I continue with ExMAG, a recap of AbSciCon. The AGU‘s Astrobiology conference (“AbSciCon” for short) just took place, this time in Providence, Rhode Island.
Dworkin, J. P. McLain, H. L. Parker, E. T. et al. A Search for Extraterrestrial Amino Acids in Samples Returned from Asteroid Bennu- Paper_1499018_extendedabstract 138182_0.pdf
Lauretta, D. S. Connolly, H. C. Jr., and OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team Tracing Life’s Building Blocks in the Solar System: Comprehensive Biogenic Element Analysis From Asteroid Bennu- Paper_1498909_extendedabstract_138125_0.pdf
Aponte, J. C. McLain, H. L. Parker, E. T. et al. Cyanide in Ryugu: Relationship to Amino acids and Amines- Paper_1498980_extendedabstract_138781_0.pdf
Huang, Y. Santos, E. Kim, B. et al. Analyses of Hypervolatiles and Polar Volatiles in Carbonaceous Chondrites and Bennu Samples: Method Developments and Data Interpretation- Paper_1499319_extendedabstract 138399_0.pdf
McIntosh, O. Baczynski, A. A. Freeman, K. H. et al. Position-Specific Carbon Isotopic Analyses Of Amino Acid Enantiomers: Implications For The OSIRIS-REx Samples- Paper_1499188_extendedabstract 138286_0.pdf
Funk, R. Regberg, A. Davis, R. et al. 2023 Cleanroom Monitoring for OSIRIS-REx- Paper_1498679_extendedabstract_138000_0.pdf
The amino acid content, and organics in general, are one of the fundamental purposes of the OSIRIS-REx mission. This isn’t the first paper, and it sure won’t be the last. We are still getting Murchison papers, and that meteorite landed in 1969.
Cyanide is a key indication of biological processes. Yes, cyanides are lethal… to higher species like us. As one looks further and further “down” the tree of life (or would that be ahead?) the killing mechanisms get less and less deadly. Go back far enough, and it is exactly because cyano-compounds are reactive that we find them interesting. It takes some sort of powerful molecule to jump-start reactions, where non-living organics (e. g., the common tholins) are pretty inert. That’s why they’re common in the Solar System, including comets and carbonaceous chondrites. Since life needs heteroatoms like N, S, P, etc. to form combinations anyway, the presence of cyanos or similar is a real line of investigation …or would that be ‘canary in a coal mine’? Even though Hayabusa (one and two) used explosive sampler mechanisms, the authors do not consider contamination by explosive residues to be a plausible source of cyanos in the Ryugu sample.
And of course, since organics and other signs were important to both Haya/OREx, the projects took care to reduce Earthly contaminants, and characterize what may have still made it to the sample handling subsystems. You can’t claim a part-per-million detection of CxHx-whatever if the room, tools, gloves etc. are filthy; we learned that at the start of the ‘Space Age’ (however you call that). Here is yet another paper to pre-block any cries of ‘contamination! contamination!’. Those organics will (with luck) go all the way down to methane, trapped in the lattices of asteroid/meteorite minerals. With serious luck, we may find propane or possibly methane held in inclusions, just as we had found brine.
The list… is life. Organics are floating in space, as seen in our infrared and radio spectra. Organics settle on ice crystals and dust grains; those particles then form meteorites, asteroids, and comets. It is the study of these particles/small bodies that will tell us of our humble origins- our origins as stardust.
Estamos pero polvo.