An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” reports the discovery of uracil, one of the bases of RNA, and niacin, i.e. vitamin B3, in the samples of asteroid Ryugu brought back to Earth by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 space probe. A team of researchers led by Yasuhiro Oba of Japan’s Hokkaido University developed an analytical technique to identify compounds in concentrations between parts per billion and parts per trillion to analyze just over 5 grams of samples.