NASA scientists unraveled the mystery of "organic", discovered in samples of lunar soil

A team of scientists, funded by NASA to solve long-standing puzzle in front of space science related to the lunar mission series "Apollo" - the researchers finally established the origin of the organic substances found in the lunar soil samples returned to Earth. Samples of lunar soil brought to our planet by astronauts series of missions "Apollo" contain small amounts (a few ppm) of organic substances, namely amino acids. Some amino acids are the "building blocks" of proteins key to life forms molecules that comprise complex biological structures, such as hair and skin structure, and which, moreover, controlled chemical reactions in living organisms.

Since the lunar surface is completely unsuitable for any of the known forms of life scientists, the appearance of these amino acids in samples of lunar soil is associated with one of four possible sources. Firstly, these amino acids could be contamination from Earth, either delivered to the moon mission astronauts "Apollo" or got on the samples after their arrival on Earth. The second source of contamination could be gas emissions from the nozzles of rocket engines lunar modules in the chemical composition of which present hydrogen cyanide HCN, capable of storage of samples in the laboratory transformed into amino acids. A third possible source of amino acids - the solar wind, which includes hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, that is, all the elements of the periodic system needed to build amino acids. The fourth possible source of "organic" in these samples of lunar scientists call the asteroids, which are often bombarded the lunar surface, as in the asteroid sometimes find extraterrestrial amino acids.

In the new study, a team of scientists from NASA, led by Jamie Elsila of the Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, found by the method of isotope analysis, and on the basis of the ratio of right- and levorotatory isomers of amino acids found that most of the amino acids in samples of lunar soil with a contamination Earth, with a small contribution from the rare amino acids for the planet, having most likely origin of the asteroid. Versions that explain the origin of the detected in samples of amino acids emissions gas engines of the lunar module, or flow of the solar wind, scientists were able to rule out completely, as the gradient of amino acids, depending on the distance to the landing of the lunar module (the first case) or the depth of the sampling from the surface of the moon (the second case ) was observed.