Samples from the asteroid Ryugu collected and returned to Earth by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission contain all five nitrogenous bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil—that make up nucleic acids, […]
cytosine
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Missions & Hardware, Press Release
Life’s Building Blocks Discovered In Samples From Asteroid Bennu
Japanese collaborators detected all five nucleobases — building blocks of DNA and RNA — in samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
Early Ocean World Chemistry: Prebiotic Nucleoside Phosphorylation in a Simulated Deep-Sea Supercritical Carbon Dioxide-Water Two-Phase Environment
Prebiotic synthesis of complex organic molecules in water-rich environments has been a long-standing challenge. In the modern deep sea, emission of liquid CO2 has been observed in multiple locations, which […]
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Status Report
An Experimental and Numerical Model of the Behavior of Cytosine in Aqueous Solution under Gamma Radiation – Relevance in Prebiotic Chemistry
Cytosine is an essential chemical molecule in living systems, such as DNA and RNA, it is essential in astrobiology to study how it behaves under probable primitive conditions.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report
Could Nucleobases Form In The ISM? A Theoretical Study In The Horsehead Nebula
This work presents the results of a theoretical study that analyzed the possibility of nucleobases to form in the interstellar medium, in the Horsehead nebula, which is a region considered […]