One key component might be RNA, a molecular cousin of DNA found in every form of life on Earth, and now scientists say they ...

The space agency has reportedly discovered life-giving essential sugars on the asteroid Bennu, a 500-meter-wide rock hurtling ...

Sugars essential for biology have been discovered in a gum-like substance in fragments from the Bennu space-rock.

The nitrogen in the gum was found to be in nitrogen heterocycles, which are the building blocks of nucleobases in DNA and RNA ...

All the essential ingredients to kick-start life as we know it have now been found in samples from the asteroid Bennu. This shows that asteroids could have delivered all the prerequisites for life to ...

The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists' biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As part of the ongoing study of pristine ...

A new analysis of samples delivered by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft from asteroid Bennu has revealed the ...

Sugars, including glucose and materials for the genetic molecule ribonucleic acid (RNA), have been discovered in samples collected from the asteroid Bennu, which is estimated to have formed 4.5 ...

The scientists, led by Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan, reported in Nature Geoscience the discovery of ribose, a five-carbon sugar, and for the first time in an extraterrestrial ...

Could a dusty rock hurtling through space hold the recipe for life? NASA’s latest analysis of asteroid Bennu’s pristine ...