An asteroid contains sugars used by living things. How did it get there and can it determine extraterrestrial life?

Who would have thought that the sugar you are trying to avoid in your tea and coffee these days may become the star of an asteroid. You may have taken a black coffee today, thinking it may spike up your glucose levels and slow your metabolism. There are various sweeteners avalilable in the market to replace sugar. So the one thing which and your next generation is trying to avoid is right now in the centre of a cosmic mystery.

Apart from bringing a wonderful taste to your beverages and desserts sugar is something bigger than to just be in that box in your kitchen cabinet. Sugars belong to a family of molecules that matters far beyond the kitchen. Some help living cells obtain energy. Others form part of molecules that carry genetic information.

So now when scientists have found such compounds in a asteroid, it becomes important to investigate what the mystery is. Researchers have analysed samples from asteroid Bennu and have identified ribose and glucose in it, according to a report by NASA. While finding these compounds doesn’t exactly mean that there is alien life present in that asteroid or around it, but may offer clues about chemistry that could help prepare the way for life.

What sugars did scientists find in Asteroid Bennu?

A team led by Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan identified several sugars in material collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Among them were ribose and glucose. The findings appeared online in Nature Geoscience on December 2, 2025.

These were tiny chemical traces in an asteroid sample, rather than visible crystals resembling kitchen sugar. Table sugar is sucrose, a different molecule. The researchers were studying what the material contained and how those compounds might have formed.

Why is ribose important to life?

Ribose forms part of RNA, a molecule essential to living cells. RNA performs several jobs. It helps cells use genetic instructions and can also help certain chemical reactions happen.

Scientists studying life’s beginnings are particularly interested in the “RNA world” hypothesis. It proposes that early life relied on RNA before today’s more complicated biological systems developed.

Finding ribose strengthens the evidence that ingredients relevant to that possibility existed beyond Earth. It does not show that Bennu contained RNA. Having the separate components is different from having a working molecule.

What makes the glucose discovery interesting?

Glucose is a sugar that many living things use for energy. According to NASA, the Bennu finding was the first identification of glucose in an extraterrestrial sample. Its presence showed that a familiar biological fuel can exist in material from space.

But scientists did not discover anything consuming it. This is significant because it helps researchers understand which type of compounds were available in the space even before life existed and if the asteroid ecosystem could support life in the future.

How could sugars form without living things?

Chemical reactions do not always need organisms. Bennu came from a larger ancient asteroid that experienced reactions involving water. The researchers proposed that its sugars formed in salty water that contained formaldehyde.

That explanation fits the distribution of sugars they measured. However, it remains a proposed formation pathway, rather than someone directly observing it.

You can understand this with an example. Imagine a kitchen filled with lots of ingredients in its cabinets. You know what is there in the kitchen when you look for it and there are other things too. But by just watching the ingredients you can’t also determine what can be cooked with it. The presence of every ingredients can tell you what is possible and not the the meal has already been made.

What could this reveal about life on Earth?

Before identifying the ribose and glucose, scientists studying the samples had also found amino acids which are used to build proteins. Researchers also found the five nucleobases used in DNA and RNA.

With these evidence, scientists say it is possible that asteroid may have helped in the formation of early Earth by supplying necessary and useful ingredients.