The discovery of all five nucleobases on Ryugu strengthens the idea that life’s molecular ingredients formed in space before reaching Earth.
A new study reports that samples from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five fundamental nucleobases, the molecular “letters” of life.
Tiny asteroid grains can preserve chemical clues about the ingredients that may have helped life emerge on Earth. The Ryugu material was returned from space in 2020 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 mission.
In 2023, an international research team reported finding uracil, one of the nucleobases, in the Ryugu samples. Now, a study published on March 16, 2026, in Nature Astronomy by Japanese scientists has confirmed that all five nucleobases are present in the pristine asteroid material.
The finding suggests that these life related ingredients may have been common across the young Solar System…
IDK. We’ve found bacteria that specialized into living inside a running nuclear reactor. I’m pretty sure that we will find bacteria living in The Sun, much less lava.
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You are not wrong but there is a pretty large temperature difference between the two. The rods are super hot but I’m pretty sure the bacteria live in the water off the rads…? I may be wrong. I was just shit posting.
Yeah, my comment was also mostly tounge in cheek. I just find it incredible that they can survive an environment that would kill basically anything else, and they are eating, as you said, the very thing that kills everything else. Just “munch much, yummy radiation.”