Sugar in space

According to Science@NASA

Scientist have discovered Glycolalehyde, A molecular cousin to table sugar, in an interstellar molecular cloud.

The prospects for life in the Universe just got sweeter, with the first discovery of a simple sugar molecule in space. The discovery of glycolaldehyde in a giant cloud of gas and dust near the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy was made by scientists using the National Science Foundation’s 12 Meter Telescope, a radio telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona.

“The discovery of this sugar molecule in a cloud from which new stars are forming means it is increasingly likely that the chemical precursors to life are formed in such clouds long before planets develop around the stars,” said Jan M. Hollis of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.

“This discovery may be an important key to understanding the formation of life on the early Earth,” agreed Philip Jewell of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Conditions in interstellar clouds may, in some cases, mimic the conditions on the early Earth, so studying the chemistry of interstellar clouds may help scientists understand how bio-molecules formed early in our planet’s history. In addition, some scientists have suggested that Earth could have been “seeded” with complex molecules by passing comets, made of material from the interstellar cloud that condensed to form the Solar System.

Glycolaldehyde, an 8-atom molecule composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, can combine with other molecules to form the more-complex sugars Ribose and Glucose. Ribose is a building block of nucleic acids such as RNA and DNA, which carry the genetic code of living organisms. Glucose is the sugar found in fruits. Glycolaldehyde contains exactly the same atoms, though in a different molecular structure, as methyl formate and acetic acid, both of which were detected previously in interstellar clouds. Glycolaldehyde is a simpler molecular cousin to table sugar.

Glycolaldehyde, the simplest sugar, compared to more complex sugar forms that occur naturally (i.e., the D-sugars). Note that the structure of glycolaldehyde is contained in both Ribose and Glucose. Ribose sugars make up the backbone of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule which is involved in protein synthesis in living cells. Glucose, the most common sugar, occurs in plant saps and fruits. Credit: NRAO.

The sugar molecule was detected in a large cloud of gas and dust some 26,000 light-years away, near the center of our Galaxy. Such clouds, often many light-years across, are the material from which new stars are formed. Though very rarefied by Earth standards, these interstellar clouds are the sites of complex chemical reactions that occur over hundreds of thousands or millions of years. So far, about 120 different molecules have been discovered in these clouds. Most of these molecules contain a small number of atoms, and only a few molecules with eight or more atoms have been found in interstellar clouds.

“Finding glycolaldehyde in one of these interstellar clouds means that such molecules can be formed even in very rarefied conditions,” added Hollis.

“We hope this discovery inspires renewed efforts to find even more kinds of molecules, so that, with a better idea of the total picture, we may be able to deduce the details of the prebiotic chemistry taking place in interstellar clouds,” Hollis said.

I believe that these discoveries help feed primordial soup theory, RNA theories, evolutionary biology theories of how life started.