More molecules and compounds vital to the origin of life have been detected in asteroid samples delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. The discovery strengthens the case that not only did life’s building blocks originate in space, but that the ingredients of RNA, and perhaps RNA itself, were brought to our planet by asteroids. Two new papers in *Nature Geoscience* and *Nature Astronomy* describe the discovery of the sugars ribose and glucose in the 120 g of samples returned from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu, as well as an unusual carbonaceous “gum” that holds important compounds for life. The findings complement the earlier discovery of amino acids and the nucleobases of RNA and DNA in the Bennu samples. A third new paper, in *Nature Astronomy*, addresses the abundance of pre-solar grains, which is dust that originated from before the birth of our Solar System, such as dust from supernovae.…