IonStorm

I was disappointed at the equal left and right. We had predicted that very wet asteroids, like Bennu, would show an excess of some left amino acids. So our hypothesis was wrong. So goes science. Here's a discussion https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00474# There is a video on the bottom of the page https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00474#_suppInfo describing this article in reasonably accessible language. Also the abundance was 5x higher than in Ryugu but 2x lower than in the Murchison meteorite. No proteins have been discovered yet. We haven't done the correct experiment, but it is planned. For those having trouble with chirality, here is a video https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14142/

NASA Science Live Asteroid Bennu Originated from World with Ingredients and Conditions for Life Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. PT) https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/nasa-science-live/

Thanks for the interest and the links. Here's the page with the graphics from the press briefing https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14772. The papers are open access so you are welcome to browse them as well.

Sorry, I responded without sufficient explanation. The table is based on what a specific instrument is sensitive to. Note the units are parts per million. If you add up everything in the two tables you get a total of 38.8% by mass (18 wt% iron, 10 wt% magnesium, 4.5 wt% carbon, 1 wt% nickel, 1 wt% hydrogen). The rest are the unlisted elements. I'll go back and make it easier to read. If you read the paper you will see "The PXRD results (Figure 12) show that phyllosilicates are the dominant mineral phase, constituting approximately 80% of the volume. Sulfides account for about 10% of the volume, while magnetite, carbonate, and olivine contribute around 5%, 3%, and 2%, respectively." This is % by volume, not mass so you need to work in the density and elemental abundance to put them on the same scale, which I appreciate is irritating. It is definitely an undifferentiated object, unlike Psyche.

Mostly silicates though

The short answer is it is similar to a CI chondrite, which is similar to Solar abundances of refractory elements. It is also very high in H, C, and especially N relative to carbon-rich meteorites. Below is combined data of Table 4 and Table 3 from the first paper (just accepted) on the results. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12536 with the elemental abundances. Missing elements were not measured by these techniques. The majority is silicate, sulfide, carbonate, and magentite though. Detailed results in publications to come. Other information can be found in conference abstracts, e.g.: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/technical_program/?session_no=253 https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/technical_program/?session_no=403 https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/technical_program/?session_no=303 This public lecture was recorded and I hope it will be made available: https://agu.confex.com/agu/abscicon24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/223328 Element wt% H 0.93 He Li 0.000149 Be B C 4.5 N 0.25 O F Ne Na 0.5826 Mg 10.0303 Al 0.8614 Si P 0.1052 S Cl Ar K 0.0542 Ca 0.8527 Sc 0.00061 Ti 0.0453 V 0.0053 Cr 0.2671 Mn 0.1965 Fe 18.8831 Co 0.0531 Ni 1.1588 Cu 0.0134 Zn 0.0325 Ga 0.00101 Ge As 0.000167 Se 0.00249 Br Kr Rb 0.000243 Sr 0.000755 Y 0.000149 Zr 0.000371 Nb 0.000031 Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag 0.000024 Cd 0.000068 In 0.000008 Sn Sb 0.000016 Te 0.000257 I Xe Cs 0.000021 Ba 0.000248 La 0.000024 Ce 0.000063 Pr 0.000009 Nd 0.000049 Pm Sm 0.000016 Eu 0.000006 Gd 0.000021 Tb 0.000004 Dy 0.000026 Ho 0.000005 Er 0.000017 Tm 0.000003 Yb 0.000017 Lu 0.000003 Hf 0.000011 Ta 0.000002 W Re Os Ir Pt 0.00009 Au Hg Tl 0.000015 Pb 0.000245 Bi 0.000012 Po At Rn Fr Ra Ac Th 0.000003 Pa U 0.000001 Total 38.83%

I have done a lot of reading. Though my Ph.D. Is in biochemistry, my career and dissertation have been on astrobiology (and exobiology when it was called that). We know from the Stardust mission that there are high temperature grains in comet Wild 2, and presumably other Jupiter family comets. This point to the early solar system being well mixed. There are also minerals that indicate aqueous history (copper iron sulfide) in Wild 2. It could mean cometary micro liquid phases, oceans, or transport from other objects. We need a comet surface sample return mission to find out. The meteorites hypothesized to come from a comet (e.g., CI1 type) but without an unaltered comet to compare against we can’t know. It has been theorized that Ryugu and Bennu are extinct comets. Also note that the distinction between comet and asteroid is fuzzy.

There are other meteorite types with phosphorous (Table 1 https://www.geo.arizona.edu/xtal/group/pdf/EarthScienceReviews_221_2021_103806.pdf). The fairly pure salt is unusual. Some was seen on Ryugu samples as well, but they are different. There is lots of P in the Earth's crust as well. The problem with phosphate is is usually gets bound in insoluble calcium phosphate. Magnesium phosphate is more accessible. There is still a lot of work to figure out the details of the form of phosphate and any organophosphates. Phosphate use in biology is far older and more fundamental than animals. Phosphates are a critical subunit of DNA and RNA, lipids, and metabolic intermediates. Here's a classic (and relatively accessible paper if you skip over some of the chemistry) on it https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.2434996

To be fair, this is the anticipated trajectory. As always there will be course correction maneuvers along the way to precisely adjust and make up for any under or over burns. For the rendezvous with Earth last year there were 4 maneuvers (and numerous backups that were not needed) to slowly nudge the spacecraft to Earth intercept and landing on target. Nevertheless the maneuvers are still remarkable: Smallest maneuver 0.1 mm/s; largest 431 m/s 10 orbit insertions; 127 deep space maneuvers First frozen orbit at a small body 37k optical navigation images Lowest orbit (832 m semimajor axis) around smallest object (490 m ave.) One safe mode in 7 years (human error outbound cruise) Arrival to departure: Also, your timing is great. The stuck fasteners were removed yesterday! https://blogs.nasa.gov/osiris-rex/2024/01/11/nasas-osiris-rex-team-clears-hurdle-to-access-remaining-bennu-sample/

Check yo staging

Also suitable for hugging https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxwvmgu5pYxyFCRWorUCLpQ76j0F9PRSEu?si=nBBC5366t8gBDecC

I'm out of my expertise of organic astrochemistry here, but the spectral classification (class M) is based on reflectance spectra mostly in the visible. Such a reflectance is based on the topmost material, thus the preponderance of material in the spectrum is responsible for the class M feature: featureless spectrum, flat or red than blue and low-middle albedo. Thus, whatever geology is responsible for the Class M spectra would be on display to the Psyche mission. 21 Lutetia was imaged by Rosetta in 2010 (Figure 1 ) is also a class M asteroid, though with a little lower density than more recent values for 16 Psyche. The more recent Scott Manley video on Psyche discusses some of the astronomy of the object (Figure 2). OSIRIS-REx wishes Psyche an uneventful outbound cruise and a good luck at understanding this strange asteroid (Figure 3). Figure 1. Class M asteroid 21 Lutetia Figure 2. Scott Manley discusses some 16 Psyche astronomy starting at 1:30. Figure 3. Curators take a break in the OSIRIS-REx cleanroom to watch the Psyche launch.

I'd love an intercept to an interstellar object. This is difficult though there are some ideas. Remember that, these can be at any inclination, including retrograde, and at very high speeds. So you need a whole lot of ∆V. You don't have a lot of time from discovery so there probably isn't time to do a bunch of gravity assists. But I'm just guessing. Storage costs are also not nothing. The refurbishment of DSCOVR was in the dozens of $M (I don't have a good source on the number and haven't looked too hard) but the 2-year delay of InSight was about $150M ($RY).

Depending on how you define inexpensive. Both OSIRIS-REx and Psyche cost around $1B each for cost perspective. I don't know that a cubesat is up to the task and the telecom downlink cost is also not nothing, let alone the launch vehicle. The lesson of faster-better-cheaper (pick two) means that if you want faster and cheaper, you and your financial backers need to be good with a high failure rate. Also with 1.3M asteroids it depends on how you define convenient, there could be a lot of launches with a long travel time. But it would be cool.

OSIRIS-REx had a wet mass of 2.1 tonnes. The costs are really development and testing of the hardware--almost entirely labor. Depending on how you define COTS there is no sample return capsule. So I guess you would spend all that mass on fuel to slow enough to enter orbit to dock with Dragon (if that counts at COTS). There has been a lot of argument if Ryugu (or perhaps Bennu) is an extinct comet. Since we have never returned unaltered comet material (Stardust dust from Wild 2 was heated upon impact with the aerogel collector), a sample from a comet would be the next step. The CAESAR mission concept (not selected in favor of Dragonfly) would have returned a cold sample from a comet. With more mass I would add active cooling. For OSIRIS-REx, I would have a sealed SRC (that requires a lot of mass to keep it under vacuum) or just launch a fleet of OSIRIS-REx's to different primitive asteroids or different spots on one. Making a bunch of OSIRIS-RExs would lower the unit cost.