An international, Czech-led consortium was the first to observe the 3D structure of preserved organic matter from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. These rare samples were collected by the Japanese Aeronautic eXploration Agency JAXA‘s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft in 2019. In 2022, JAXA first allocated these samples to only a few countries, including the Czechia.
Thanks to this, Czech scientists from the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences CAS, in collaboration with CEITEC in Brno and TESCAN, were able to analyse these samples in unpresendented detail and gain important insights into the evolution of organic matter preserved for 4.5 billion years. The initial findings of their research have been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.
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