'Extraterrestrial sugar' discovered in meteorites could be clue to origin of life

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Thursday, November 21, 2019
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It's not Imperial Sugar but NASA says it found something sweet inside some meteorites.

GREENBELT, Md. -- A team of international scientists says they've found sugars in meteorites that could be essential to the creation of life.

The team, which included scientists from NASA and other institutions, announced earlier this week that they had identified ribose and other bio-essential sugars in carbon-rich meteorites NWA 801 and Murchison.


The discovery supports a theory suggesting that chemical reactions in asteroids create certain building blocks of life. Those building blocks, the theory suggests, may have arrived on Earth following meteorite strikes.

"The research provides the first direct evidence of ribose in space and the delivery of the sugar to Earth. The extraterrestrial sugar might have contributed to the formation of RNA on the prebiotic Earth which possibly led to the origin of life," study lead author Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University explained.