Sugars, 'gum', stardust found in Asteroid Bennu
NASA scientists found life-essential sugars, a gum-like substance, and stardust in Asteroid Bennu samples. Ribose and, for the first time in an extraterrestrial sample, six-carbon glucose were found. The gum-like material formed tangled molecular chains and likely emerged early in the asteroid's history. The samples had six times the amount of supernova dust than any other studied astromaterial.