All 5 Key Ingredients of OUR DNA have been Found in Meteorites that came from Outer Space

According to a report published in Nature Communications on April 26, scientists have discovered that all five base components, or nucleobases, that store information in DNA and RNA, were found in meteorites that landed on Earth. This finding suggests that life on Earth could have originated from outer space.

The meteorites that crashed onto Earth over the last century contained the nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil, along with a small number of sugars and phosphates. These five nucleobases are the fundamental building blocks of genetic code and are responsible for encoding the information that is essential for life on Earth.

According to researchers, a 2-gram chunk from a meteorite that fell near Murchison, Australia in 1969 contains two crucial components of DNA and RNA, which have now been identified for the first time in an extraterrestrial source. These components could have either come to Earth from space or grown in an early hot soup on the planet. With this discovery, the former theory has gained more evidence.

To extract the compounds, scientists used a mild extraction technique that uses cold water instead of acids. Adenine, guanine, and traces of uracil have been found in meteorites since the 1960s, but cytosine and thymine have remained elusive until this recent discovery. The study was conducted by Yasuhiro Oba's team from Hokkaido University in Japan and astrochemists at NASA.

Daniel Glavin from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center stated that they have now "completed the set of all the bases found in DNA and RNA and life on Earth" and that "they’re present in meteorites." The discovery of these compounds in meteorites suggests that life on Earth could have been created by compounds that originated from outer space.

This discovery is significant as it adds to the growing body of evidence that supports the idea that life on Earth may not have originated solely