00:00Samples from an ancient asteroid hold all five letters of life's genetic code.
00:04Rugu is a leftover from the early solar system, about 4.5 billion years old.
00:10Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission brought its samples back to Earth in 2020.
00:14The mission returned just 5.4 grams of pristine material.
00:18In 2023, scientists found one genetic building block in it, called uracil.
00:24Now a Japanese team has confirmed all five nucleobases are there.
00:27They're adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil.
00:31These molecules form the letters of DNA and RNA.
00:34NASA's Bennu samples also showed all five in 2025.
00:38Because Rugu's samples were collected in space, they avoided contamination on Earth.
00:43That makes them one of the clearest windows into early solar system chemistry.
00:47The findings appear in nature astronomy.
00:49They suggest life's ingredients may have formed in space and been delivered to early Earth.
00:54Our genetic story may have started among the asteroids.
00:58Disclosure, this video contains stock footage and content created or enhanced using AI-assisted tools.
Comments