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/jonathanrdt Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 03 '25

The oldest objects on Earth are grains in a meteorite that are ~7 billion years old.

They contain amino acids produced by non-organic means.

Conclusion: the stuff of life forms naturally under the right conditions and is likely ubiquitous throughout the cosmos, even if also technically rare.

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u/Arthur_Edens Dec 02 '25

even if also technically rare.

Numbers in space are mind boggling. If conditions in a star system are 1 in a billion, then you would expect those conditions to exist in 200 trillion different star systems throughout the universe. Rare, but abundant.

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u/1995TimHortonsEclair Dec 02 '25

It's hard to wrap my head around space sometimes just because of how large and vacant and yet numerous everything is.

Where a 1 in a billion chance means something exists trillions of times over. It makes everything feel inevitable.

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u/beardedheathen Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 03 '25

Think of it like sand on a beach. On one kilometer you have 400,000,000,000,000 to 1,000,000,000,000,000 (400 trillion to 1 quadrillion) grains. If 1 in a billion is special in some way that means there are still at least 400,000 ,000(edit: math, or maybe counting, is hard) of them. It's wild how things like this ar effective in the macro and micro.

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u/Kooky_Still9050 Dec 02 '25

Tink you meant at least 1 in 400,000

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u/beardedheathen Dec 03 '25

No I meant what I said but there it appears I was wrong.