Asteroid Samples Suggest a Solar System of Ancient, Salty Incubators

Asteroid Samples Suggest a Solar System of Ancient, Salty Incubators

Researchers have found salts in samples from asteroid Ryugu. Combined with similar salty discoveries from asteroid Bennu, the finding suggests that aqueous incubators of life’s first ingredients may have been relatively common in the early solar system. Astrochemists have found sugars and nucleotide bases outside of Earth before, but an extraterrestrial environment in which these ingredients could combine—and possibly create life—remained elusiv…