Asteroid fragments upend theory of how life on Earth bloomed
Fragments of the asteroid Bennu, carefully collected and ferried to Earth by a robotic spacecraft, contain the building blocks for life, NASA announced today.NASA ‘fist bumps’ an asteroid to reveal Solar System’s secretsNot only does Bennu contain all 5 of the nucleobases that form DNA and RNA on Earth and 14 of the 20 amino acids found in known proteins, the asteroid’s amino acids hold a surprise. On Earth, amino acids in living organisms predominantly have a ‘left-handed’ chemical structure. B...
Read more at nature.com