Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Scientists analyzing samples from asteroid Bennu have discovered sugars, mysterious space polymers, and dust from exploded stars, a combination that sounds like the aftermath of a cosmic baking accident. The findings were published Tuesday in Nature Geoscience and Nature Astronomy, journals that typically do not use phrases like “space gum” but made an exception for scientific accuracy. Researchers confirmed that a rock older than most planetary systems contains molecular building blocks for life, suggesting the universe might ship products capable of life but only partially assembled.
(NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University led the team that found ribose and glucose in the Bennu samples, marking the first detection of six-carbon glucose in extraterrestrial material and confirming that space rocks contain actual sugar, not the metaphorical kind. Ribose is the backbone sugar in RNA, performing numerous functions that keep cells operational. Glucose serves as one of Earth’s primary energy sources, meaning the early solar system had invented calories before inventing life forms capable of counting them.
“All five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA, along with phosphates, have already been found in the Bennu samples,” Furukawa announced, describing the molecular equivalent of finding all parts present to assemble a car but not an actual car, which is still damn cool. Furukawa did not specify whether assembly instructions were included. It is presumed they were not.
The presence of ribose but absence of deoxyribose, the sugar used in DNA, supports the “RNA World” hypothesis, which proposes that early life relied on RNA before DNA showed up and stole all the credit. Present-day life uses a complex system organized by DNA, RNA, and proteins, but early life may have operated on RNA alone, like a startup before venture capital funding showed up and ruined everything.
A second paper led by Scott Sandford at NASA’s Ames Research Center reveals a gum-like material in the Bennu samples that no one has encountered in any previously studied space rock, meteorite, or cosmic debris field. The substance is polymer-like, nitrogen-and-oxygen-rich, and was once soft and flexible before spending geological time periods hardening into its current state, like a piece of gum stuck under a desk for the entire age of the solar system. The material is officially designated “space gum” in published literature, though Sandford emphasized it predates terrestrial gum products by approximately 4.5 billion years and would likely fail modern food safety standards by approximately the same margin.
“With this strange substance, we’re looking at, quite possibly, one of the earliest alterations of materials that occurred in this rock,” Sandford said. “On this primitive asteroid that formed in the early days of the solar system, we’re looking at events near the beginning of the beginning. Looking at its chemical makeup, we see the same kinds of chemical groups that occur in polyurethane on Earth.” He emphasized that Space Gum isn’t simply polyurethane, but rather a material with “random, hodgepodge connections and a composition of elements that differs from particle to particle,” suggesting the early solar system had not yet invented quality control.
Using an infrared microscope, Sandford’s team selected unusual carbon-rich grains, then began what Sandford calls “blacksmithing at the molecular level.” They applied ultra-thin layers of platinum to reinforce particles, welded on tungsten needles to lift grains a thousand times thinner than human hair, and analyzed composition via electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy. The process required months of work, though Sandford noted it was still faster than customer service at most electronics stores.
“We knew we had something remarkable the instant the images started to appear on the monitor,” said Zack Gainsforth of UC Berkeley. “It was like nothing we had ever seen, and for months we were consumed by data and theories as we attempted to understand just what it was and how it could have come into existence.” The team conducted experiments to examine the material’s characteristics, discovering it was bendy and dimpled when pressure was applied. No one tested whether it retained flavor.
A third paper led by Ann Nguyen of NASA’s Johnson Space Center analyzed presolar grains, dust from stars that predated our solar system, found in the Bennu samples. The asteroid contained six times more supernova dust than any other studied astromaterial. The abundance suggests Bennu’s parent body formed in a region of the protoplanetary disk where dying stars had deposited particularly high concentrations of dust, like a neighborhood downwind from an unfortunately placed cosmic crematorium. The presolar material had been generally well-mixed as the solar system formed, though certain asteroids apparently received premium blends with extra stardust.
This needs to be set to music. (NASA/University of California, Berkeley)
“These fragments retain a higher abundance of organic matter and presolar silicate grains, which are known to be easily destroyed by aqueous alteration in asteroids,” Nguyen said. “Their preservation in the Bennu samples was a surprise and illustrates that some material escaped alteration in the parent body.” How the material managed to avoid billions of years of geological processing remains under investigation, though researchers suspect the fragments may have simply hidden really well.
The discoveries from Bennu continue to provide clues about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life, confirming that the universe had already assembled the ingredients for biology before Earth existed. Whether this means life was inevitable or just extremely well-prepared remains a matter of ongoing research and metaphysical anxiety.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered the pristine samples to Earth after visiting Bennu, a mission that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and confirmed that space rocks contain sugar, ancient gum, and the cremated remains of stars. The agency says further analysis will continue, though no timeline was provided for when scientists might determine if the space gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
