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Scientists were searching for a simpler sugar when radio telescopes instead revealed the first true sugar ever confirmed in interstellar space.
Key Points
Scientists detected erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar found naturally in raspberries, in a molecular cloud near the center of the Milky Way — marking the first confirmed detection of a true sugar molecule in interstellar space.
Researchers estimate that sugars like erythrulose may have reached early Earth via cometary dust billions of years ago, potentially contributing to the emergence of the first metabolic and replication processes.
The same region of space previously yielded a compound that contributes to raspberry flavor, though it’s also rich in cyanide-bearing compounds.
Scientists are doing incredible work every single day to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Take, for example, a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, which outlined what space may taste like. And it turns out it may taste a lot like your favorite fruit.
A team of astronomers led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra at Spain’s Center for Astrobiology has detected erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar, drifting within a molecular cloud called G+0.693–0.027 near the Milky Way’s galactic core. The team explained that the finding marks the first time a true sugar molecule has ever been confirmed in interstellar space.
While the term “erythrulose” sounds a bit jargony, you’ve likely encountered it in your everyday life here on Earth. It’s a sugar that occurs naturally in raspberries, and, as The Guardian pointed out, it’s the active ingredient that turns self-tanning lotion into a convincing shade of bronze.
To find this space cloud and this sugar, the team used two radio telescopes, the Yebes 40-meter and the IRAM 30-meter, both located in Spain, and pointed them to one particular spot in the night sky to search for the molecule’s radio signature. They expected to find a simpler three-carbon sugar, but instead they found this four-carbon erythrulose.
“To my surprise, I saw the signals,” Jiménez-Serra told The Guardian.
This, however, isn’t the first time a food-like substance has been found in this region of space. As ScienceAlert reported, researchers previously found ethyl formate in roughly the same place, a chemical compound that contributes to raspberry flavor. Combined with this new sugar find, that discovery led some scientists to nickname the galactic center a “raspberry donut.”
The team noted that erythrulose exists in extremely low concentrations in this cloud, with roughly one molecule for every 1.5 billion hydrogen molecules.
However, while it may not be abundant now, the researchers shared in a statement that between 0.5 and 50 million metric tons of this sugar could have reached our planet’s surface some 4 billion years ago, potentially providing the planet with sugars that contributed to the emergence of the “first metabolic and replication processes on the early Earth.” In other words, it could have given us life.
“We have been waiting for an actual detection like this,” Yoshihiro Furukawa, a professor at Tohoku University in Japan who discovered sugars on the Bennu asteroid, told The Guardian. “Sugars formed in the interstellar medium can reach Earth and other planets via cometary dust.”
Related: Why Is Texas A&M Sending Grape Seeds to the International Space Station?
But, as Furukawa added, there’s still a lot to learn. “This supply may have helped facilitate the emergence of life if planetary environments were able to build life from such molecules,” he said, “although that process itself remains unclear.”
One thing that is clear is that while it sounds tasty, you wouldn’t want to taste this space sugar for yourself, because the cloud it comes from is also packed with cyanide-bearing compounds, so this particular raspberry donut is strictly look, don’t lick.
So next time you go stargazing, maybe bring a bowl of raspberries to complete the experience.
Read the original article on Food & Wine
