Tokyo, Oct. 9 (Jiji Press)–A reaction discovered by Kenso Soai, co-winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, may help explain why life on Earth uses only one of the two mirror-image molecular forms and guide the search for the origins and traces of life. Organic molecules, such as amino acids, that are essential to life can exist in two mirror-image forms, much like left and right gloves. Yet life on Earth uses only one of the two. Why this asymmetry emerged has long puzzled scientists. Soai, 76, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, discovered a reaction in which a very tiny difference between the two forms is amplified until one predominates. This process, known as asymmetric autocatalysis, demonstrates that such an imbalance can arise naturally. It came to be known as the Soai reaction. The question that follows is where such a process arose. Yoshinori Takano, director-general of the Institute for Earth and Materials Sciences at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, studies amino acids and other organic molecules found in samples that Japan’s Hayabusa2 asteroid probe brought from the asteroid Ryugu. Takano said, “We set out on the mission with the hypothesis that the answer might lie on Ryugu.” However, neither samples from Ryugu nor those from the asteroid Bennu, collected by a U.S. probe, have yielded evidence of the asymmetry. “The origin (of the asymmetry) remains a mystery,” Takano said. Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission, or MMX, is scheduled to launch this month, and a probe is expected to bring samples from the Martian system. Takano hopes that the mission will provide researchers with clues to determine whether a similar left-right bias exists in the region around Mars, which is relatively close to Earth. “The Soai reaction must have occurred somewhere in nature for life on Earth to emerge,” Takano said. “Finding that place is our task.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
