Technology & Science
Ribose & Glucose Detected in Bennu Return Sample, Completing Asteroid’s Full Pre-biotic Toolkit
On 2 Dec 2025 researchers reported in Nature Geoscience that NASA’s pristine Bennu sample contains both ribose and, for the first time in extraterrestrial material, glucose—meaning every molecular ingredient needed to assemble RNA (and most for DNA) is now confirmed on a single asteroid.