Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut now serving as a senator from Arizona, expressed his enthusiasm over NASA’s thrilling announcement made on Thursday. The agency revealed that researchers discovered sugars necessary for life in samples collected from a near-Earth asteroid during its mission.
Although the findings of glucose and ribose — sugars gathered by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from the asteroid Bennu — do not confirm the existence of life, NASA pointed out that these are critical components of biological molecules found commonly throughout the solar system.
Additionally, the research highlighted that deoxyribose, which was not found in the samples, along with ribose, form essential building blocks of DNA and RNA found here on Earth.
Leading the team of researchers, Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan remarked that the presence of ribose signifies that all of the components necessary for RNA are available in the asteroid sample.
In a shared clip on social media, Kelly stated that these results provoke larger questions about life in the universe and emphasize the need for sustained federal support for scientific research.
We can’t say for sure if life is out there, but considering the statistical likelihood, it seems possible that life might exist beyond Earth, remarked Kelly. He had previously joked on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show about the prospect of the U.S. finding aliens, humorously noting the complications when the aliens wanted to meet government leaders.
Danny Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and co-investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission, expressed his renewed optimism about finding extraterrestrial life, stating in a video that:
This discovery indicates that these essential life component sugars were widespread, distributed throughout the outer to inner solar system.
Glavin continued, These building blocks were everywhere, which truly enhances my hope that these components contributed to life on Earth and potentially anywhere else, including Mars, Europa, or regions in the outer solar system.
