{"id":200107,"date":"2025-09-04T17:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200107\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:36:14","slug":"asteroid-fragment-reveals-a-strange-mineral-never-seen-on-earth-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200107\/","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid Fragment Reveals a Strange Mineral Never Seen on Earth : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

The asteroid<\/a> Ryugu is an echo from the deep, distant past. Two tiny grains of the rock, delivered to Earth in 2020 by the famous Hayabusa2 mission<\/a>, contain minerals older than any found on our planet.<\/p>\n

One grain comes from the asteroid’s surface, the other from within. Both are incredible archives of our early Solar System<\/a> and the chemical reactions that led to its formation.<\/p>\n

An X-ray analysis of the two grains was published in 2024<\/a> and recently elaborated upon in a press release from Brookhaven National Laboratory at the US Department of Energy.<\/p>\n

Related: Asteroid Ryugu Was Once a Planet Forming in The Outer Reaches of Our Solar System<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“The beauty of these combined techniques is that we can measure the chemistry of both the exterior and the interior of a sample without damaging it,” says<\/a> project lead and geoscientist Paul Northrup of Stony Brook University in the US.<\/p>\n

“This is important to preserve such rare and unique samples, especially when hundreds of researchers are competing for access to so little material.”<\/p>\n

\"AsteroidHigh-resolution slice of a Ryugu grain showing selenium (red), iron (green), and manganese (blue). (BNL<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Here on Earth, geochemical records of the early Solar System have long been wiped from the face of our planet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carbonaceous asteroids like Ryugu have escaped the same, harsh planetary conditions, which means they are relatively pristine and uncontaminated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Each little grain that scientists collected from the asteroid in 2020<\/a> is extremely precious<\/a>. Only 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces) of material exist to analyze, and Northrup and his international team received just 9.3 milligrams in total.<\/p>\n

\"AsteroidEnergy map of a Ryugu grain, showing phosphorus, sulfur, and silicon. (Northrup et al., Geosciences<\/a>, 2025)<\/p>\n

Using two X-ray imaging techniques, the researchers revealed a diversity of minerals and compounds, including selenium, manganese, iron, sulfur, phosphorus, silicon, and calcium.<\/p>\n

According to the recent BNL press release, phosphorus was found in Ryugu in two forms: the mineral found in our teeth and bones<\/a>, and a rare phosphide mineral not present on Earth.<\/p>\n

Northrup and team’s paper doesn’t confirm what this mineral is, but further study<\/a> of the asteroid material later in 2024 turned up hydrated ammonium magnesium phosphorus (HAMP). This is a crystalline mineral not found on our planet that is most similar to Earthly struvite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Struvite is closely linked to biological formation, and it is a major part of some kidney stones.<\/p>\n

“The finding of HAMP grains in the Ryugu samples continues to highlight the potential role of extraterrestrial matter in originating life on Earth,” wrote<\/a> astrobiologist Matthew Pasek for Nature Astronomy in 2024.<\/p>\n

Every grain of data we can mine from Ryugu gets us a step closer to understanding the start of our Solar System<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The study was published in Geosciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The asteroid Ryugu is an echo from the deep, distant past. Two tiny grains of the rock, delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":200108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[352,159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-200107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115147242563723134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}