RNA base in asteroid samples suggests origins of life on Earth: Study

[helicon]

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-rna-base- ... -life.html

[Ylem]

This made our local news a few days ago, pretty fascinating.

So much to discover out there

[Gmetric]

Thanks for that, Michael. Finding uracil within uncontaminated asteroid material is a good catch and certainly bolsters the RNA argument. One wonders about the time scales of when and how uracil formed within the regolith of Ryugu by comparison to the time scales on earth. Ryugu went through some changes during its evolution, some of which were quite recent by comparison to Earth's history. The paper suggests that uracil doesn't hold up too well when subjected to energetic processes, hence the lower values of uracil in comparison to other samples. Given that some of the recent changes on the surface of Ryugu were well after life had started to evolve on earth and were quite energetic, the window of opportunity diminishes quite significantly. I guess it's a question of whether abiogenesis started before or after the late heavy bombardment period and whether the LHB was responsible for depositing all of the necessary material for abiogenesis. Thought-provoking for sure. Thanks again