Overview
- The team published a Nature Astronomy paper on July 13 reporting a spectroscopic identification of the four-carbon sugar erythrulose in molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027 after matching 12 laboratory spectral lines from observations with Spain’s Yebes 40‑m and IRAM 30‑m telescopes and estimating roughly a 0.2 percent chance those key matches were random.
- Quantum-chemical calculations and astrochemical models in the study indicate erythrulose can form on icy dust-grain mantles when two-carbon molecules like glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol react and are later released into the gas phase by radiation or shocks.
- The molecule appeared more abundant than expected three-carbon sugars in the same cloud, a result that undermines the common idea that interstellar complexity builds mainly by adding single carbon atoms one at a time.
- Using conservative assumptions the authors estimate roughly 0.5 billion to 50 billion kilograms of erythrulose could have reached early Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, but they note the bombardment’s intensity and molecular survivability are debated.
- Beyond confirming the first interstellar 'true sugar,' the detection — notable as the largest non-cyclic and first four‑oxygen molecule reported in the interstellar medium — has prompted calls for follow-up observations to search for ribose and to replicate the finding in other molecular clouds.