An international team of Japanese scientists has made history in astrobiology by confirming that all five fundamental nucleobases of DNA and RNA are present on Asteroid Ryugu. The pristine space particles were originally brought to Earth in a secure return capsule by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 mission. While individual molecular letters of life like uracil were spotted previously, finding the entire suite of genetic ingredients on a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid strongly supports the scientific theory that the primordial building blocks necessary to kindle life were delivered to early Earth via space impacts.
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