Pristine rock samples taken from asteroid Ryugu are home to uracil, a critical component of RNA.
Back in 2010, Japan’s space agency JAXA completed one of the biggest milestones in the history of space exploration: It collected samples from an asteroid and brought them back to Earth. A decade later, the agency’s Hayabusa2 mission did the same thing with another asteroid called Ryugu—with a vastly more ambitious goal of bringing back an even bigger cache of extraterrestrial rock samples.
On Tuesday, Japanese scientists revealed they discovered within the Ryugu samples the presence of uracil, a component that’s critical to the makeup of RNA. They also discovered nicotinic acid, better known as Vitamin B3 or niacin, which is important for allowing organisms to run metabolic functions.Courtesy of JAXA
Both materials have been previously discovered in carbon-rich meteorites that have impacted Earth. But, “this is the first time they have been detected in any returned samples from space,” Yasuhiro Oba from Hokkaido University, who led the new study, told The Daily Beast in an email. “Based on this finding, we can say uracil is indeed present in space.
Carbon-rich asteroids “have been considered as a source of organic molecules, in particular on the early Earth, as hypothesized by the late Carl Sagan in the early 90’s,” said Oba. “I expect such extraterrestrial materials could have a contribution to prebiotic chemistry and the origin of life on the Earth.”already on EarthBut missions like Hayabusa2 enable us to study pristine samples, delivered to us in sealed capsules, that haven’t been messed up by earthly treasures.
Ultimately, the study further validates the importance of running more sample return missions in the coming years. People are waiting intensely for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to returnb
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