A groundbreaking discovery has been made regarding the potential origins of life on Earth and beyond. Samples collected from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission have revealed the presence of essential ingredients necessary for life as we know it. This discovery suggests that asteroids could have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth and potentially other celestial bodies.
The OSIRIS-REx mission, which extracted samples from Bennu in 2020 and returned them to Earth in 2023, has provided researchers with invaluable data. Initial analysis of the samples showed the presence of water, carbon, organic molecules, amino acids, formaldehyde, and all five nucleobases found in RNA and DNA. However, one crucial component was missing – the sugar necessary for constructing the genetic molecules RNA and DNA.
Recently, Yoshihiro Furukawa and his team at Tohoku University in Japan conducted further analysis on a small portion of the Bennu sample. By crushing the sample and mixing it with acid and water, they were able to identify the presence of ribose, along with other sugars like lyxose, xylose, arabinose, glucose, and galactose. This discovery marks the first time sugars have been identified in extraterrestrial materials, shedding light on the potential origins of life beyond Earth.
Sara Russell, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, praised the findings, noting that the discovery of sugars completes the list of ingredients necessary for RNA. She highlighted the significance of the briny pools of water on Bennu’s parent body, where complex organics could have formed.
The presence of sugars in the Bennu sample not only confirms previous findings in meteorites on Earth but also provides compelling evidence for the role of asteroids in delivering the components essential for life. This discovery supports the RNA world hypothesis, which suggests that RNA molecules played a crucial role in the origins of life on Earth before the emergence of DNA-based life forms.
Overall, the research conducted on the Bennu samples opens up new possibilities for understanding the origins of life in the solar system and beyond. The presence of sugars in these extraterrestrial materials provides valuable insights into the potential for life to exist on other celestial bodies, such as Mars, and reinforces the idea that asteroids could have played a vital role in seeding life on Earth.
