A crucial building block of life exists on the asteroid Ryugu

Uracil, a building block of life, has been found on the asteroid Ryugu.

Yasuhiro Oba and colleagues discovered the precursor to life in samples collected from the asteroid and returned to Earth by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, the team reports March 21 in Nature Communications.

“The detection of uracil in the Ryugu sample is very important to clearly demonstrate that it is really present in extraterrestrial environments,” says Oba, an astrochemist at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

Science News headlines, in your inbox

Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered to your email inbox every Thursday.

Uracil had been previously detected in samples from meteorites,

→ Continue reading at Science News

More from author

Related posts

Advertisment

Latest posts

TikTok is investing $1.5 billion to get back into online shopping in Indonesia | CNN Business

Jakarta — China’s TikTok will invest $1.5 billion to become controlling shareholder of an e-commerce unit of Indonesia’s GoTo Gojek Tokopedia, as it seeks to restart...

China has another massive headache now: It can’t stem deflation | CNN Business

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how...

Spotify slashes staff to move faster into AI – and Wall Street loves it | CNN Business

New York CNN  —  Spotify made a name for itself in the audio-streaming business through its hyper-personalized user experience,...