BREAKING: Sugars essential for life have been found in pristine asteroid Bennu samples collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
Combined with previous detections of amino acids and nucleobases, we see that life’s ingredients were widespread throughout the solar system.
go.nasa.gov/48MTu9i

More on the study led by Yoshihiro Furukawa of TohokuUniPR
Scientists identified ribose (used in RNA) and – for the first time in any extraterrestrial sample – glucose, a major energy source for life. These sugars join nucleobases and phosphates previously found, demonstrating the full suite of RNA building blocks were present on the ancient asteroid.

While ribose was present, deoxyribose (the DNA sugar) was not. This suggests RNA may have been more prevalent than DNA in the early solar system – supporting the “RNA world” hypothesis that DNA was not necessary for the origin of life.

Because OSIRIS-REx samples were collected and analyzed free of earthly contamination, these findings give strong evidence that crucial ingredients for life’s chemistry were readily available on asteroids throughout the solar system.

This discovery of ribose and other chemical building blocks of life in Bennu wouldn’t have been possible without the strong international partnership between scientists at NASAGoddard, JAXA En, and multiple universities in Japan.