Overview
- A team led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra reported in Nature Astronomy on Monday, July 13, 2026, that they identified the four-carbon sugar erythrulose in the molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027 near the Milky Way’s center.
- The identification rests on laboratory rotational spectra matched to radio observations from Spain’s Yebes 40‑m and the IRAM 30‑m telescopes, with twelve independent spectral lines matching the laboratory fingerprint for erythrulose.
- Erythrulose was far more abundant than expected compared with three‑carbon sugars, leading researchers to propose it forms on icy dust grains when two‑carbon molecules such as glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol are activated and combine.
- Based on the measured abundance the team estimates roughly 0.5 to 55 million tonnes of erythrulose could have been delivered to early Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, though that range is an order‑of‑magnitude projection with modeling caveats.
- Immediate next steps include follow‑up observations of other clouds, laboratory ice‑chemistry experiments to test formation routes, and targeted searches for larger sugars such as ribose while noting the detection is currently limited to a single cloud and models do not yet fully reproduce observed abundances.