RNA base in asteroid Ryugu samples suggests origins of life on Earth

We're all made of star stuff.

I would be skeptical. Can contamination from our own tools or atmosphere be ruled out?

And now what is so new with that? Bees fly from one flower to the next, or brain information is transported by stimulating target neurons by nanoelectricity and chemical transmitter molecules and so on. It’s just everything to function by such source-target-interactions and their combinations. Even some kindergarten or elementary school children do already know or feel such basics and surely are bored by such a hype around such results of space research.

2 comments on an article like this.

Sums up pretty much our species.

@ finally rich

Concur. Our species is doomed. I’m not even being sarcastic. Unless you want to go the “god theory” way, our planet was was formed from and blasted with “space dust”. We already knew life didn’t originate from earth since earth is in itself a creation of space dust. But it’s nice to see new data to back that up.

If you were standing on the moon and looking at the planet earth you would be seeing 1 and 1/3 seconds into the past. But if you were more than a few thousand light years away and could somehow see it as clearly, then you would not know there was any civilization on this planet at all.

If there were any contemporaneous intelligent life in the universe they would have to overcome time travel to even see what is happening here, and we would need to as well. That might someday happen, if we don't destroy ourselves first.

I was told that god did it all, and was beaten if I doubted it. I wanna show the priest this! Haha.

The finding lends weight to a longstanding theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space when asteroids crashed into our planet carrying fundamental elements.

That ‘s one of the most accepted theories, and related to cosmogenesis, but there are others… (electric sparks in the form of lightning, biochemical evolution, spontaneous generation, divine creation, common descent, Darwin’s evolution, gradualism, multiplication of species, etcetera)…;

the electric spark theory is interesting (a chemical reaction in a reducing environment and the presence of frequent lightning strikes…; formation of complex substances called coacervates and protobionts — the precursors to living cells).

So we can now throw away the religious books?

Any place outside planet earth is hostile to life. Only planet earth can sustain life. The outer space may contain some elements found in a living organism but it doesn’t follow that life exists outside the earth’s realm.

note:

( [ It is some of the latest research from analysis of 5.4 grams of rocks and dust gathered by the Hayabusa-2 probe from the asteroid Ryugu.

Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 and returned to Earth's orbit in late 2020 with a capsule containing the sample from the asteroid.

"Since every meteorite has landed on the surface of the Earth where microorganisms are ubiquitously present everywhere, it always makes the interpretation on the origin of such biologically important molecules in meteorites more complex," said Yasuhiro Oba, associate professor at Hokkaido University and an author of the research.

Yoshinori Takano, a scientist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and author of the Ryugu research, said he was also keenly awaiting the Martian Moons eXploration project, set to launch from Japan next year and return around 2029.

It will collect samples from Phobos, one of the moons of Mars.

"I am sure it will be very hotly watched by organic cosmochemists for the next 10 years," said Takano. ] )

So many great Japanese minds out there…(!); I’m happy to see Japan involved in this…(!); keep up the good work. :)

Well, Uracil can be formed both on Earth and in outer space. As far as the conditions are right, life can form on other planets. It would be arrogant to assume that Earth is the only planet hosting life forms.

So we can now throw away the religious books?

Well, if Adam and Eve were made from clay, that clay may have been made from space dust. As for God living in heaven, it would be more likely he lived in the upper atmosphere than in outer space, as the angels would rely on the atmosphere to fly. It would be even more likely that he lived on a high mountain, like Olympus... Those books will still provide interesting reading.

@Righteous was downvoted, but contamination is a real possibility. Even if organic molecules are found in other parts of space, I don't see any evidence to suggest that life did not develop independently on Earth.

Skeptical about this claim. Elements of life have been expected to be found in the solar system due to the early bombardment of the Earth releasing and spreading those elements throughout the eight planets and other bodies.

Imagine this. There was was once a thriving Universe, which expanded to the point that it could no longer sustain itself, and then like a balloon - popped. All those Life particles within it suddenly got thrown about in this big Bang and ended up spread across the remnants of what was - what we call, comets & asteroids. This may explain the perpetual Universe, one big Bang after another, ad-infinitum.

This Universal big-bag repetition idea, should keep all sides happy, since who or what created it all in the first place, our current Big Bang, may have had many cycles preceding it... so who really knows how old our universes really are ? It all had to start at some point....

@Temyong

Only planet earth can sustain life. The outer space may contain some elements found in a living organism but it doesn’t follow that life exists outside the earth’s realm.

Only planet earth (that we know of) can sustain life in our form - likely because we evolved here in this environment. Life in other areas of the cosmos could look very different. There are also all kinds of extremophiles that exist in places completely inhospitable to humans, such as places with massive pressures or temperatures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile

And tardigrades, which live on earth, have survived outer space:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

Returning to the article, this is very interesting stuff. Perhaps we'll see more evidence for panspermia over the coming years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

Any place outside planet earth is hostile to life. Only planet earth can sustain life

Ridiculous certainty given how many planets there are. Even in our own solar system, there is speculation that the moon Europa could support life.

Skeptical about this claim

Skepticism is good. On what grounds?

This Universal big-bag repetition idea, should keep all sides happy

What sides? Science deals with these matters. Who are you taking about?

The galaxy and universe are full of simple life. That's got to be true based on all the science. I can't see any other possibility. Intelligent life is harder. Look at all the life on Earth that doesn't create technology. There are hundreds of thousands of different species, but only 1 uses tools to create electricity. That's ignoring plants. Push that into the galaxy and intelligent life becomes millions of times less likely than simple organisms.

Contamination is always a concern, so the team spent years ensuring that wasn't possible at any stage of the sampling process.

Actually, it suggests that these molecules are present in many of these high carbon asteroids that formed as the planets were forming. That’s it, as much as we’d like to say we have answers.

There seems to be a little misunderstanding. The article does not say that RNA was found on the asteroid, only that the building blocks for RNA were found, and water.

Just my own opinion: given the ubiquitous nature of the building blocks for life throughout known space, I would expect that life would evolve wherever the conditions are appropriate. While we know that the conditions for life are suitable near the surface of this planet, we will know more about the possibility for life on other planets, moons, and asteroids, after we have done more exploring. We do not yet know the limitations for the development of life.

On another subject, whether or not other life forms may have developed the ability to travel faster than light, I would like to express an opinion. It seems to me that there has been a whole lot of anecdotal, and even official, stories about unidentified objects that would seem to fit the bill for long distance space travel. Just because we do not yet understand the mechanics behind faster-than-light (ftl) travel, that does not mean we never will. And, on that subject, it seems to me that the easiest way for intelligent life to survive the stresses of high g forces would be for that life to itself be mechanical, or AI. I prefer to hope that organic life would be able to enjoy the thrill of star travel, but we will have to wait and see, provided we do not destroy ourselves first.

ジョージMar. 22  09:18 pm JST

Any place outside planet earth is hostile to life. Only planet earth can sustain life. The outer space may contain some elements found in a living organism but it doesn’t follow that life exists outside the earth’s realm.

I assume you've been and checked out all the planets out there then?

Some of the larger moons of Jupiter and Saturn have mountains, atmospheres, lakes, etc. that may be conducive to living organisms. Even the distant planet Pluto was discovered in 2015 to have these traits as well. And life can be in forms unlike that of Earth.

ジョージToday  12:30 am JST

On what grounds?

I imagine, for some here, the lack of any mention of a "higher power" in the article above.

Science is never meant to disprove (or even prove) the existence of a god. Most scientists (incl. astronomers) throughout history have believed in God. We keep finding new and strange results all the time, shaking up our image of the Universe.

Besides, we can all debate about God/Yahweh/Jah/Shang-tri/Brahman/Ahura Mazda/Yowa/Great Spirit/etc. creating the Universe but as the Creator God doesn't have to follow our rules.

Sorry to disappoint you folks, but there is nothing out there, just poisonous gasses, freezing cold temperature or extreme heat. Nothing is available as life form.

Sorry to disappoint you folks

True.

The rest of the post was extremely disappointing.

On another subject, whether or not other life forms may have developed the ability to travel faster than light, I would like to express an opinion. It seems to me that there has been a whole lot of anecdotal, and even official, stories about unidentified objects that would seem to fit the bill for long distance space travel. Just because we do not yet understand the mechanics behind faster-than-light (ftl) travel, that does not mean we never will. And, on that subject, it seems to me that the easiest way for intelligent life to survive the stresses of high g forces would be for that life to itself be mechanical, or AI. I prefer to hope that organic life would be able to enjoy the thrill of star travel, but we will have to wait and see, provided we do not destroy ourselves first.

“ Number one traffic rule of the Universe “: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light…; faster than light particles cannot exist because they’re not consistent with the known laws of physics…; only massless particles can travel at that speed…; it’s impossible to accelerate any material object up to the speed of light because it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so…; the faster something travels, the more massive it gets, and the more time slows, until you finally reach the speed of light, at which point time stops altogether…; if time stops… so does speed…; at the speed of light, there is no passage of time so the speed of light is the universal speed limit…; t=d/s / s=d/t.