Mankind has long wondered whether there is life elsewhere in the universe and former astronaut Mark Kelly explains NASA’s latest exciting scientific find.
Pete Hegseth might not think much of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz), but as a retired astronaut it is clear Kelly has knowledge of the endless space that surrounds our planet. Kelly has announced an “exciting” scientific find by NASA that shows that the “building blocks” of life can be found “widespread throughout the solar system.”
The retired astronaut and current Senator celebrated NASA’s major find on Thursday as the space agency reveals how scientists have found sugars essential for life on an astronaut close to Earth. Admittedly, the discovery of sugars, glucose and ribose, gathered by NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft from the asteroid Bennu, do not give “evidence of life.” However, according to the space agency, the findings do show that “building blocks of biological molecules were widespread throughout the solar system.”
According to NASA, the sugars deoxyribose (which wasn’t found in the samples) and ribose are both key building blocks of DNA and RNA on Earth. Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Furukawa, a professor at Tohoku University in Japan, explained that the discovery of ribose indicates that “all of the components” that form RNA are present in the asteroid.
Kelly was obviously excited over the discovery and shared a clip on social media where he said the findings spark “larger questions about life in the universe.” He added that they underscore the importance of federal funding for scientific research.
NASA revealed they found some of the building blocks of life in a sample brought back from an asteroid (on a @UArizona-led mission, by the way).
It raises some big questions about whether there’s other life somewhere out there in the universe. According to my math, probably. pic.twitter.com/ZzSPHTuh7t
— Captain Mark Kelly (@CaptMarkKelly) December 5, 2025
Kelly was recently on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he spoke of the findings. “We don’t know for sure if there’s life anywhere else, but when you think of the probability, the statistical probability that it exists, maybe there’s life out there,” said Kelly.
On the show, he joked with Colbert that the US had found aliens, but that it became a problem when they said “take us to your leader.”
Meanwhile, Danny Glavin is an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Flient Center and the co-investigator on the OSIRIS-Rex mission. He said in a video that the latest discovery makes him “much more optimistic” on the search for extraterrestrial life.
“What this means is that these building blocks of life were distributed from the outer solar system all the way into the inner solar system,” Glavin said. “They were everywhere, ubiquitous, which really makes me more optimistic that not only could these building blocks have enabled life on Earth, but potentially elsewhere — Mars, Europa, the outer solar system.”
While the news might sound intriguing, CNN reports that should the near-Earth asteroid Bennu collide with Earth in the future, it could cause major global damage, despite the fact it is a fraction of the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. That asteroid slammed into Earth some 66 million years ago was estimated to measure about 6.2 miles in diameter and was the last known large asteroid to hit our planet.
Meanwhile, we don’t have to worry too much right now as astronomers estimate that Bennu has a 1 in 2,700 chance of affecting Earth in September 2182.
