SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Scientists from Japan have found the last piece of the puzzle that supports the idea of extraterrestrial life such as bacteria and cells. This Tuesday, researchers released a publication about their findings from asteroid fragments brought back to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The vehicle launched in 2016, made contact and collected samples from asteroid "Bennu" in 2018, and returned to Earth in 2023. Scientists now know that samples from Bennu contain ribose and glucose, simple sugars that are fundamental to building and sustaining life as we know it. Evidence from the journal publication tells us that asteroids hundreds of millions of miles away likely had all the necessary components to build RNA for the past four and half billion years. It's likely that chunks of asteroids like Bennu have impacted the surface of Mars and one of Jupiter's moons. This means planets and moons in our solar system likely have all the ingredients they need to create life. The discovery of glucose in samples from the asteroid marks the first time that the chemical has ever been discovered on a non-Earthly surface.