Overview
- A team led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra reported in Nature Astronomy that they identified the four‑carbon sugar erythrulose in the molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027 by matching twelve radio spectral lines to laboratory measurements.
- The detection used observations from Spain’s Yebes 40‑m and IRAM 30‑m radio telescopes and laboratory spectroscopy produced at university labs to provide an unambiguous spectral fingerprint.
- Researchers found erythrulose at least eight times more abundant than related three‑carbon sugars in that cloud, and collaborating chemists proposed it forms on icy dust grains from two‑carbon precursors such as glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol.
- Based on the measured abundance the team estimated between about 0.5 million and 55 million tonnes of erythrulose could have reached early Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, though that range depends on model assumptions about delivery and timing.
- Next steps include targeted searches for larger, biologically relevant sugars like ribose, expanded observations of other clouds, and laboratory and chemical‑model work to test the proposed ice‑grain formation pathway and refine delivery estimates.