Asteroid Ryugu and the Early Solar System 

A few weeks ago I reported on the results of ANOTHER ASTEROID ENCOUNTER.

THIS ARTICLE reports on another one! It concerns the asteroid Ryugu. The encounter collected almost 5.5g of material. The asteroid is rich in carbon and water and this type of asteroid may be the source of carbonaceous chondrites meteorites. 

The recovered material is not as dense as the meteorites but then it has not gone through a fiery entry through the Earths atmosphere. Therefore the material may contain components which are not found in the meteorites.

And that component may be nitrogen from ammonium-bearing clay minerals or nitrogen-rich organic material. Further information is eagerly anticipated!

 Image of Ryugu taken by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft in 2018. JAXA/wikipedia, CC BY-SA