Astronomers Discover Natural Sugar in Interstellar Space

Kathmandu. Astronomers have for the first time discovered a naturally occurring type of sugar in the interstellar dust and gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way. Scientists have said that this discovery strengthens the possibility that chemical compounds necessary for life can form in space even before stars and planets are formed. A team of scientists from the Center for Astrobiology in Spain has identified a sugar called erythritol. This sugar, made of four carbon atoms, is found naturally in fruits like raspberries. Sugar plays an important role in providing energy to living beings, building biological structures, and forming genetic material like RNA and DNA. For the research, scientists used two radio telescopes from the Yebes Observatory, north of Madrid, and the IRAM Radio Observatory in the Sierra Nevada region of southern Spain. They studied a molecular cloud near the center of the Milky Way called G+0.693-0.027. The research team identified the sugar by comparing the signals of molecules obtained from radio waves with the wavelength of erythritol measured in the laboratory. Initially, scientists tried to find a simpler sugar with three carbons, but such a sugar was not found. The lead researcher and astronomer at the Center for Astrobiology and the Spanish National Research Council, Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, said this discovery was unexpected. According to her, the prevailing belief until now was that molecules in space gradually become larger by adding carbon atoms. She said that this discovery provides evidence that relatively complex sugars can form in interstellar space even before the birth of stars and planets. According to the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Monday, erythritol can form from simple molecules in icy dust particles in space and then become part of more complex chemical systems. So far, scientists have identified more than 340 types of molecules in the interstellar space of the Milky Way. However, direct evidence of sugar has been found for the first time. Professor Mark Sephton from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, who was not involved in this research, said that although sugar and sugar-related compounds have been found in asteroids before, finding such a compound in interstellar space strengthens the possibility that our solar system was formed with the necessary organic matter for life. Scientists have been researching for a long time how sugar molecules first formed on Earth. Studies conducted in the laboratory have shown that such sugar molecules cannot be easily formed in the harsh environment of early Earth. Therefore, finding such sugar in space is considered an important achievement in understanding the origin of life.