{"id":217752,"date":"2023-03-22T09:06:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T13:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/es\/?p=278262"},"modified":"2025-07-01T19:45:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T02:45:53","slug":"life-beyond-earth-asteroid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/life-beyond-earth-asteroid\/","title":{"rendered":"Astrobiology Breakthrough: Essential Organic Compound Found on Asteroid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A recent study, carried out by a <strong>team of Japanese scientists at Hokkaido University<\/strong>, has revealed the discovery of a molecule essential for the <strong>formation of life<\/strong> on an asteroid\u2026 at least as we know it on <a href=\"https:\/\/3d-earth-for-pc.en.softonic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The robotic spacecraft Hayabusa 2, launched by the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/japan-failure-rocket-h3-launch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency<\/a>, has collected samples of this molecule on the asteroid named Ryugu. <strong>The molecule in particular is uracil<\/strong>, one of the four nitrogenous bases of ribonucleic acid (<a href=\"https:\/\/arn-play.en.softonic.com\/android\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RNA<\/a>), which scientists believe may have been the key to the creation of life on our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.vozpopuli.com\/2023\/03\/Detectado-un-precursor-de-acido-nucleico-en-el-asteroide-Ryugu-e1679418753487.jpg\" alt=\"Detectado uracilo, un precursor de \u00e1cido nucleico en el asteroide Ryugu\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is uracil?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The key to uracil is that it is a molecule that was able to copy itself without the help of others, thus generating increasingly complex elements. Another sample collected from the asteroid is <strong>nicotinic acid (vitamin B3)<\/strong>, another essentially terrestrial element and very important in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Yasuhiro Oba<\/strong>, the associate professor in charge of this research, explained the importance of this discovery in an exclusive interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/elpais.com\/ciencia\/2023-03-21\/hallada-en-un-asteroide-una-de-las-cuatro-letras-del-arn-la-molecula-esencial-para-la-vida.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">El Pa\u00eds<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This finding further strengthens the hypothesis that organic molecules present in meteorites, asteroids and comets contributed to <strong>the prebiotic evolution of the early <a href=\"https:\/\/earthview.en.softonic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Earth<\/a><\/strong> and possibly to the origin of life on this planet.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The amounts found of the organic compounds were higher in the case of vitamin B3 compared to the uracil samples, which were collected in small amounts, between 6 and 32 parts per billion (ppb). Another important point of the research is that the samples were not contaminated despite being <strong>found millions of kilometers from Earth<\/strong>, which is unusual for this type of research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A unique discovery that may change what we know about life on Earth has been found by a group of Japanese scientists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9257,"featured_media":217753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-217752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321540,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217752\/revisions\/321540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217752"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=217752"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=217752"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=217752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}