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HarHarVeryFunny a day ago

It's a sample of one, but I think the takeaway is just that if the nucleobases are present on a random asteroid then they probably commonly occur. Of course as you note it takes a lot more than that to form these into nucleic acids.

I would guess there is a more primitive stage in the emergence of life where self-replicating soups (Kaufmann: metabolisms), including things like nucleobases and amino acids, capable of collective replication/expansion exist, before we get anything as sophisticated as nucleic acids and structural encoding.

kjkjadksj 20 hours ago | parent [-]

The nucleobases can self polymerize into nucleic acids

pfdietz 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Since nucleobases contain neither sugars nor phosphates, no they can't.