Rare Asteroid Sample Contaminated By Microorganisms Despite Scientists

More details: Found here

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The Japanese space agency (JAXA)'s Hayabusa2 collected 5.4 grams (about a teaspoon's worth) of rock, pebbles, and dust from the Ryugu asteroid when it was nearly 200 million miles from Earth. The spacecraft dropped off the samples in 2020, which were sealed within a capsule that made a soft landing at the Woomera Range Complex in the South Australian outback.

The capsule was then transported to a facility in Sagamihara, Japan, built especially to accommodate the asteroid samples. It was first opened inside a vacuum room, located inside a clean room, and later sent to a pressurized room with a constant flow of nitrogen meant to keep out Earthly contaminants. Bits of the sample were then placed inside nitrogen-filled containers and sent out to researchers around the world for analysis.

The team behind the recent discovery received their own piece of Ryugu. After scanning the asteroid sample, they found rods and filaments of organic matter, which were interpreted as thin, thread-like microorganisms. The microbial community originated through terrestrial contamination and did not have extraterrestrial origins, the researchers determined. The discovery suggests that the strict protocols in place to avoid bacterial contamination just weren't good enough.

In 2020, a NASA spacecraft retrieved samples from the asteroid Bennu and dropped them off on Earth in 2023. The space agency followed similar protocols to JAXA to protect the asteroid material, and no Earthly bacteria has been reported on the bits of Bennu yet.

Sample return missions can provide unprecedented access and insight to nature of our solar system, but keeping that material pure is proving to be more challenging than initially believed.

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