Ryugu's Dust Carries All Nucleobases, Hinting at Cosmic Origins of Life
TL;DR
Analysis of Ryugu samples from JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission finds all five nucleobases—uracil, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine—the DNA/RNA building blocks, suggesting primitive asteroids can form and preserve prebiotic molecules and potentially deliver them to Earth, though this does not imply life existed on Ryugu; similar organics were found in Bennu samples, underscoring the ubiquity of these building blocks in the solar system.
- Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building Blocks Futurism
- A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu Nature
- We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what’s it telling us? Ars Technica
- All 5 fundamental units of life's genetic code were just discovered in an asteroid sample Phys.org
- The asteroid Ryugu has all of the main ingredients for life New Scientist
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