Overview
- Three papers in Nature Geoscience and Nature Astronomy report sugars vital to biology, a previously unknown nitrogen- and oxygen-rich polymer, and an unusually high abundance of presolar grains.
- Yoshihiro Furukawa’s team detected ribose and, for the first time in an extraterrestrial sample, glucose, while noting the absence of deoxyribose in the Bennu material.
- Scott Sandford and Zack Gainsforth describe a flexible, polymer-like “space gum” that likely formed very early on Bennu’s parent body before extensive watery alteration.
- Ann Nguyen’s group found roughly six times more supernova-derived dust than in any previously studied astromaterial, including preserved pockets that escaped alteration.
- Scientists emphasize these detections are not evidence of life; OSIRIS-REx’s pristine, nitrogen-curated samples enable the work, and teams are pursuing enantiomeric and isotopic measurements to verify extraterrestrial origin.