Astronomers Find A Raspberry-Flavored Sweet Spot In Deep Space
In a study published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has detected the first true sugar molecule in interstellar space, giving us a clue that sugar can exist way before planets begin to form.
Using Spain's Yebes 40-meter and IRAM 30-meter radio telescopes, the team, led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra at the Center for Astrobiology in Spain, managed to find the unique rotational data of erythrulose. This four-carbon simple sugar, known on Earth for giving raspberries their flavor and acting as an active ingredient in self-tanning lotions, was found floating in the massive, frigid molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027.
Located roughly 27,000 light-years away near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, this region of gas and dust is a well-known chemical factory, but the discovery of a four-carbon monosaccharide is huge. Previously, scientists had only detected simpler, sugar-like substances such as glycolaldehyde,...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to hothardware.com. To see the full text click HERE
