NASA finds water and organics in Bennu asteroid sample

NASA discovers new source of coal.

Thanks! One of the interesting features are the screws used.

The limiting factor with many fasteners – including those with the classic Phillips drive system – is the amount of torque that can be put through it. A greater torque requirement has traditionally meant either that larger fasteners have had to be used, or more of them. Either way, significant weight is added to a joint. . . . [T]he ACR Torq-Set Drive System . . . is an offset cruciform drive system that allows more torque to be applied.

https://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/content/technology/can-phil...

Torq-set bits are similar to Phillips-head bits, but the four arms of its central cross are offset from each other. This design helps to prevent tampering, and makes the screw ideal for use in aerospace applications.

https://www.grainger.com/category/tools/sockets-bits/screwdr...

To me it basically means carbon-based

Edit: didn't see any academic paper linked in the article (assume they're still working on it all) but the following is mentioned

> In a preliminary analysis of some of the dust, Lauretta said scientists hit the jackpot with a sample that is nearly 5 percent carbon by mass and has abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals.

Organics would be compounds containing carbon.

Good question.

In astrobiology (and I think also in biology and most of chemistry) it means any molecules that contain carbon, with a few exceptions (exceptions include carbon dioxide and diamond - they don't count as organic). Strange definition, perhaps, but I'm certain that's what it means in astrobiology.

Organic molecules are not necessarily in living things and, indeed, interstellar dust clouds contain huge quantities of amino acids and other organic molecules which most astronomers believe have never been near a living thing.

Unspecified in this article, but organics we've found in meteorites (fallen asteroids and comets, mostly) include the same carbohydrates, fatty acids, nucleic acids, and amino acids that all known life is built from.

In the broadest sense, organics could refer to any molecule of carbon and hydrogen, however I don't think that's how it's used here.

As best as I can tell, it means that the sample is 5% carbon, with no indication of whether that carbon is contained in glucose or in carbonate.

Organic compounds. Generally, containing carbon and carbon-hydrogen bonds.

Hydrocarbons and it's derivatives not specifically carbon containing compound.

Why are some stories duplicates and others merely related?

Good q. No, looks like Stardust (comet) and Hayabusa (asteroid)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample-return_mission#2000s

Most likely the picture was taken with a monochrome sensor with a filter applied tuned to a specific wavelength. That's more valuable than a color filter, which is made up of a mosaic of single pixel individual red, green and blue filters, interpolated to produce a RGB image.

I think it is a color photo, just it’s just everything I’m pretty much is grey I think. If you look closely in some parts there’s a tiny bit of color.

That is one of the more mind-bending hypotheses I've seen, and ... there's some plausibility to the argument. Proof would be exceedingly challenging to come by, though sample returns from extra-solar-system bodies which show evidence of common-ancestor biology might occur.

Contradictory evidence might be the establishment of proto-genetic sequences which are capable of encoding at least simple proteins, and some evidence that the development of such capabilities in a biologically-naive environment (that is: without any competition from existing life forms) is more rapid than subsequent evolutionary development. A key concept that needs to be kept in mind when considering the evolution of any system --- biological, technological, informational, etc. --- is that primordial species and forms need not be competitive against any current exemplars with which we're familiar, but only those which exist in their own contemporaneous environment. It's a lot easier to get started when things are just getting started....

I do note that the idea that the entire Universe on average was within the Golidlocks temperature zone might well also mean that localised places and times were subject to vastly greater levels of ionising or other radiation which would be highly disruptive to life.

That said ... the idea that conditions suitable for biological activity literally once pervaded the Universe and are now only found in very localised circumstances orbiting a small subset of stars and limited to rocky planets with significant water ... is both epic and poetic. Literally sparks fading from an all-encompassing explosion....

The main source for the hypothesis appears to be:L Loeb, A. (2014): "The habitable epoch of the early Universe". International Journal of Astrobiology, vol. 13, 4."

<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...>

Additional sources: <https://sites.google.com/view/sources-big-bang-life/>

I just watched this video last night and thought to myself, “seems plausible”… then I bought a calendar from their store.

Once in a while you hear something you never heard or thought of before. This was one such time, and I cherish those moments that seem to become rarer and rarer. It is not that I know everything, but on a shallow level I have heard about a lot. This especially goes for history. When I was young, I did not have much continuity in my understanding of history. I knew some events here and there, but mostly there were voids in my knowledge. Over time, I have filled in many of the voids. Not to some deep level, but to a level that when someone mentions something in common contexts, I have usually heard about it before. It is always possible to go deeper, but I would like it better to learn more breadth-first so to say.