The asteroid Bennu could be a fragment of an ancient planet entirely covered by an ocean: this is the hypothesis that researchers at the University of Arizona are working on who began analyzing some of the samples brought back to Earth last September by NASA's Osiris-Rex mission.
This was revealed by Dante Lauretta, head of the mission, in an interview with the Space.com website.
One of the first findings to emerge is that the material taken from Bennu appears to be "unlike anything else in our meteorite collection isotopically, which is exciting," Lauretta says.
“There is a whole realm of materials that we will never have access to if we rely only on meteorites.”
What surprises the researchers above all is the phosphate crust that covers the Bennu samples, something never seen before in meteorites.
Such high concentrations of phosphate have been detected on oceanic planets, Lauretta points out.
For example, Saturn's moon Enceladus contains phosphate, a key element for life that is found in quantities significantly higher than those present in Earth's oceans.
"The asteroid Bennu could be a fragment of an ancient oceanic planet", concludes Lauretta.
“It's still highly speculative, but at the moment it's the best lead I have to explain the origin of that material.”
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