Amino acid tryptophan discovered on asteroid Bennu

The important discovery of tryptophan, an essential amino acid, on Bennu opens up the possibility that life began beyond Earth.

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that is involved in a variety of biological processes, including supporting infant growth and the production of proteins and enzymes. Interestingly, tryptophan is often formulated into pharmaceuticals to help with insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Photo: NASA Johnson Space Center / Erika Blumenfeld and Joseph Aebersold.

The discovery of tryptophan in samples collected from the asteroid Bennu is considered by experts to be an important discovery. Until now, scientists have not discovered this amino acid in any other meteorite or extraterrestrial sample. Photo: interestingengineering.com.

The discovery could expand understanding of how the building blocks of life may have seeded Earth billions of years ago. Photo: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

The discovery, according to NASA researchers, comes from an analysis of samples collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which launched a rover to the asteroid Bennu in 2020 and collected 121.6 grams of rock and dust before returning the sample safely to Earth in 2023. Photo: UA/OSIRIS-REX Mission.

Previous studies of samples collected from the asteroid Bennu have identified 14 of the 20 amino acids that form life, as well as all five biological nucleobases – the building blocks of the genetic code in DNA and RNA. Photo: NASA.

The new discovery brings the total number of amino acids identified on asteroid Bennu to 15. Photo: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab/Jonathan North.

The presence of tryptophan on the asteroid Bennu strengthens the idea that the recipe for life may not have started on Earth alone. Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

Bennu is 300m wide. This is an asteroid that flies past Earth every 6 years. Bennu is thought to be a fragment of a much larger asteroid. It formed between 2 billion and 700 million years ago in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Photo: OIST.

The chemical composition of the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu provides valuable information about the early solar system. Photo: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

Readers are invited to watch the video : Universe map with more than 900,000 stars, galaxies and black holes. Source: THĐT1.

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