Bennu Samples Yield Ribose, Glucose, Completing RNA Ingredient Set
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 13
Bennu Samples Yield Ribose, Glucose, Completing RNA Ingredient Set
2 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 13
Summary
Ribose at 0.097 nanomoles per gram and glucose at 0.35 nanomoles per gram were detected in pristine Bennu material returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, according to a Nature Geoscience paper led by Yoshihiro Furukawa.
Those sugar findings matter because earlier Bennu analyses had already identified nucleobases and phosphate, leaving returned samples with all known chemical components needed to build RNA.
Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry were used on curated asteroid material collected in 2020 and delivered to Earth in 2023, giving researchers a cleaner contamination-controlled test than meteorites recovered on Earth.
The study does not show RNA formed on Bennu or that life existed there; it argues instead that small bodies in the early solar system could make and preserve life’s raw molecular building blocks.
Mineral and chemical evidence from Bennu also points to ancient brines and water-driven alteration on its parent body, supporting the idea that aqueous chemistry helped generate a broader prebiotic organic inventory.
With all RNA parts found on an asteroid, what is the true missing link between space dust and the first life?
Ribose is a key to life but incredibly fragile. How did asteroids manage to preserve it for billions of years?
If life's ingredients are common in space, is a planet's unique geology the real bottleneck for sparking life?
OSIRIS-REx Bennu Samples Unveil Bio-Essential Sugars, Ancient Presolar Grains, and Novel Organic Polymers Shaping Early Solar System Chemistry
Overview
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returned pristine samples from asteroid Bennu, opening a unique window into the early solar system. These uncontaminated samples led to groundbreaking discoveries, including the detection of bio-essential sugars like ribose and glucose by a team of Japanese and US scientists. The presence of these fundamental molecular ingredients highlights how asteroids could have delivered the building blocks of life to early Earth. By studying Bennu's material, scientists are gaining crucial insights into both the origins of life and the distribution of raw materials across the young solar system.