We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what's it telling us?

Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building Blocks

In June 2019, a Japanese spacecraft called Hayabusa2 touched down on Ryugu, a 3,000-foot asteroid some 185 million miles from Earth. It then proceeded to fire a metal bullet at the surface, dislodging enough material to scoop up with a special “sampling horn” to take back home to our planet. Scientists have been poring over the extremely rare samples ever since to study the near-Earth asteroid with the hope of learning about how the building blo…

All 5 fundamental units of life's genetic code were just discovered in an asteroid sample

A new study reveals all five fundamental nucleobases—the molecular "letters" of life—have been detected in samples from the asteroid Ryugu.

We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what's it telling us?

This week's result is just the latest in a growing collection of discoveries.