Sugar has been detected in interstellar space by the radio telescopes at Yebes in Guadalajara and Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevada
A team led by a Spanish researcher has identified, near the centre of the Milky Way, a type of sugar composed of four carbon atoms, known as erythrulose, which on Earth is found in raspberries and self-tanning products. This would suggest that complex and biologically relevant molecules can form in space. Ribose and glucose had previously been discovered in samples from meteorites and asteroids, but until now no sugar had been directly detected in the interstellar medium. The finding is published in Nature Astronomy.
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