“The starry sky might be sweet.” Astronomers have successfully observed a sugar-like molecule in outer space, a compound called acrythrosone sugar that exists in the thin clouds of gas and dust between stars.
The results of the relevant research were published in the journal Nature & Astronomy on July 13. According to the Associated Press on July 14, chitosan is made up of four carbon atoms, and researchers call it the first true type of sugar captured in interstellar media. Chitosan is commonly found in raspberries, and some artificial black beauty creams also use chitosan. However, sugar‘s role goes far beyond sweetening black tea or decorating donuts. Some sugar molecules not only provide energy to cells, but also form the basic material of DNA. The study of interstellar sugar substances is very closely related to revealing the origin of life on Earth.
An analysis by the Nature magazine website points out that sugars, which are crucial to the origin of life, are unlikely to have appeared naturally on the young Earth. Five-carbon sugars have been found in meteorite samples from billions of years ago, and extraterrestrial inputs may have provided some of the organic raw materials for the early Earth. Although astronomers discovered ethanoldehyde in interstellar media in 2000, MIT astrochemist McGuire emphasized, “Ethanoldehyde has properties close to sugars, but is not technically a sugare. We hope that the sugare we want to lock onto must have at least three carbon atoms, so researchers have been focused on searching outer space for sugare molecules with longer carbon chains.”
A turning point in the research occurred in 2022, when astronomer Cosinero shared a set of spectral data on the detection of glucose. Spanish National Research Council astronomer Jiménez Serra used two radio telescopes to lock onto a giant dust cloud in the Galactic Center and compared the two findings to confirm the sugar molecule in this gaseous form. Jiménez Serra said that millions of tons of glucose may have fallen from the sky during what is known as the “late heavy bombardment period,” when asteroids and comets crash heavily into Earth, “and after experiencing such a downpour of organic matter, the related substances likely participated in building the ‘primitive soup’ that allowed the first batch of biological molecules to be synthesized.” (Zhang Jiu)