Sugar and “space gum” found on asteroid Bennu

Researchers have found a sugar and rubber-like substance in samples taken from the Bennu asteroid, which according to NASA has never been found before in samples taken from space, tells CBS News.

Samples from the asteroid were brought home by the US Space Administration’s Osiris-Rex probe in 2020. The findings may help to understand how life on Earth began.

Sugars are important building blocks of living life in biology. According to the researchers, finding them on an asteroid is not necessarily proof of life from space. However, they prove that the basic elements of living organisms have, at least at one point, been widely distributed throughout the solar system.

According to the researchers, some simple molecules needed to build DNA and RNA were found in the samples taken from the asteroid. The discovery supports the hypothesis that the first life forms on Earth relied mainly on these molecules.

“Today’s life is based on a complex system. However, early life may have been simpler,” says the researcher Yoshihiro Furukawa from Tohoku University in Japan.

Mystical “space rubber” was probably formed in the early stages of our solar system. According to Nasa, the molecules contained in the space rubber could have started life on Earth.

“With this strange substance, we are probably looking at one of the earliest changes that happened on this planet,” says Scott Sandford From NASA’s Ames Research Center.

“When we look at this primitive asteroid that formed in the early days of our solar system, we’re looking at events near the beginning of everything,” adds Sandford.