Overview
- A team led by Izaskun Jiménez‑Serra published results Monday reporting a spectroscopic match between lab measurements and radio data that identifies erythrulose in molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027 near the Milky Way’s center.
- Researchers used rotational spectroscopy from laboratory samples made with a talc plus laser vaporization method and then compared that fingerprint to signals recorded by the Yebes 40‑m and IRAM 30‑m radio telescopes, finding 12 independent spectral lines that match erythrulose.
- The cloud contains far more four‑carbon erythrulose than expected, appearing at least eight to seventeen times more abundant than the three‑carbon sugars searched for, a result that challenges simple stepwise carbon‑addition models of interstellar chemistry.
- Laboratory experiments and chemical models indicate erythrulose can form on icy dust‑grain surfaces when two‑carbon molecules such as glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol are activated and combine, and the team’s models estimate between about 0.5 and 55 million tonnes of this sugar could have been delivered to early Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment but those numbers are model‑dependent.
- The finding raises follow‑up work: independent confirmations, refined chemical models, laboratory tests of formation and stability under space conditions, and targeted searches for larger biologically relevant sugars such as ribose to clarify implications for prebiotic chemistry.