C&EN: "Samples from asteroid Ryugu contain all five nucleobases"

Pretty cool astrochemistry news (article by Fionna Samuels): 

In December 2020, a capsule containing precious cargo fell from the sky and crashed into the Australian outback. The container carried a small amount of dust from the distant asteroid Ryugu. Its return marked the end of the primary Hayabusa2 mission. In the years since, scientists have meticulously studied every aspect of the grains. Now they’ve discovered that the grains contain all five nucleobases—nitrogen-containing organic molecules fundamental to DNA and RNA (Nat. Astron. 2026, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-026-02791-z).

This is not the first time scientists have detected a nucleobase in the Ryugu sample. “I was involved in the initial analysis of Ryugu samples and contributed to the study that reported the detection of uracil,” astrochemist Toshiki Koga of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology writes in an email. But at the time, the amount of material that his team was given was too small to do a more detailed analysis.

Pretty cool that they were able to do a successful analysis on just 11 mg of sample (although from a total synthesis perspective, that seems like so much!)