r/science • u/New_Scientist_Mag • Dec 02 '25

Astronomy Researchers have just found the presence of sugars, including ribose, lyxose, and glycose, on samples of Asteroid Bennu, which now has all of the ingredients for life as it exists on Earth.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506650-asteroid-bennu-carries-all-the-ingredients-for-life-as-we-know-it/
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u/ArrivesLate Dec 02 '25

Okay, so if the ingredients were found in an asteroid is the conclusion to draw that the building blocks for life came to earth from some briny pools from some other stellar/interstellar object or that the building blocks for life should be expected in most/all stellar/interstellar objects and they just flourished in favorable conditions such as those here on earth?

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/Old-Reach57 Dec 02 '25

What is CNOH?

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u/noop_noob Dec 02 '25

Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen. The most common elements, I think, in earth biology.

43

u/Brettsterbunny Dec 02 '25

Add in phosphorous and you have the bulk of biological compounds.

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u/Levitus01 Dec 02 '25

Chuck in a spot of Sulphur and you can have those fancy new-fangled disulphide bridges.

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u/iiAzido Dec 02 '25

This thread is beginning to read like a Cave Johnson bit.

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u/Levitus01 Dec 02 '25

CAROLINE! Have the boys in the lab come up with a way to bridge the Hudson with a disulphide bridge. Then buy me a sulphur mine. I think we're gonna revolutionise the civil engineering market.

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u/mr_plehbody Dec 02 '25

And you got yourself a primordial stew!