Since return mission Hayabusa2 brought samples of asteroid Ryugu back to Earth in 2020, a team of experts from across the world have been examining them to learn more about the origins of our solar system.

Carbonaceous chondrites, such as the Winchcombe meteorite which fell to Earth and was retrieved in Gloucestershire in 2021, are an extremely rare group of meteorites which have been known to contain organics and amino acids—ingredients for life. They are the most primitive and pristine materials of the solar system and can provide unique information on where water and the building blocks of life were formed, and what planets are made from.

Ryugu returned

In this study, published Oct. 20 in the journal Science Advances, the team conclude that Ryugu, now a near-Earth object, was among the group of asteroids known as the Cb-type which formed billions of kilometers away from Earth, toward the edge of the sun's influence, in a region of space such as the Kuiper Belt, or perhaps even deeper into space.

Professor Sara Russell, A senior research lead at the museum who co-authored the paper, says, "It's only within the last decade we've begun to appreciate just how far objects in the solar system can move towards, and away from, the sun.