Scientists have found that all five of the substances that make up DNA and RNA in samples from Ryugu, the asteroid Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency visited in 2020.

As outlined in a paper titled “A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu” that appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy this week, analysis of samples from Ryugu turned up “all five canonical nucleobases – purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (cytosine, thymine and uracil).”

That matters because “The purines adenine and guanine and the pyrimidines cytosine, uracil and thymine constitute the base sequences of DNA and RNA that encode and transmit genetic information.”

And they were all floating around in an orbit between Earth and Mars.

“This implies that the molecular prerequisites for life are not unique to Earth and may emerge as natural products of chemical evolution throughout the Solar System,” the paper states.

There’s more: “Nucleobases could have been delivered to the early Earth, potentially contributing to the molecular inventory necessary for life,” the paper argues. “Furthermore, elucidating the formation mechanisms of extraterrestrial nucleobases helps to constrain the universal physicochemical conditions under which they can form abiotically, thus linking astrochemical processes in interstellar and planetary environments to the chemical evolution that preceded the origin of life.”