The search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System is currently guided by our
understanding of terrestrial biology and its associated biosignatures. The observed …

The origin of life is a fascinating, unresolved problem whose deciphering would have
important scientific, epistemological and social implications. Over time, philosophers and …

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected samples from the surface of the carbonaceous near-
Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu and brought them to Earth. The samples were expected to …

The lack of pyrimidine diversity in meteorites remains a mystery since prebiotic chemical
models and laboratory experiments have predicted that these compounds can also be …

Samples from the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu provide information on the
chemical evolution of organic molecules in the early solar system. Here we show the …

The asteroid impact near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on 15 February 2013 was the
largest airburst on Earth since the 1908 Tunguska event, causing a natural disaster in an …

Hydrogen gas, H2, is generated by alkaline hydrothermal vents through an ancient
geochemical process called serpentinization, in which water reacts with iron-containing …

All terrestrial organisms depend on nucleic acids (RNA and DNA), which use pyrimidine and
purine nucleobases to encode genetic information. Carbon-rich meteorites may have been …

The search for definitive biosignatures—unambiguous markers of past or present life—is a
central goal of paleobiology and astrobiology. We used pyrolysis–gas chromatography …

All chondrites accreted∼ 3.5 wt.% C in their matrices, the bulk of which was in a
macromolecular solvent and acid insoluble organic material (IOM). Similar material to IOM is …