Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Scientists have discovered that a sample of the Ryugu asteroid collected by Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft contains the nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, the building blocks of DNA and RNA upon which all life is based. Because asteroids like Ryugu formed 4.6 billion years ago when the planets were being born around the infant sun, and have remained relatively unspoiled since, the discovery sheds new light on the chemical conditions that existed at the dawn of the solar system. Adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine are the four bases of the genetic code that make up the rungs of the double helix structure of DNA by forming specific pairs (adenine pairs with thymine, guanine with cytosine). In RNA, uracil replaces thymine to pair with adenine.…