In a First, Astronomers Find Sugar in the Space Between Stars, Providing New Clues About the Origins of Life on Earth

Sugars are crucial components of RNA and DNA, the basis of all known organisms alive today. In a new study, the sugar erythrulose was detected in a gas- and dust-filled cloud near the center of our Milky Way galaxy

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

July 15, 2026 10:00 a.m.

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Scientists have made a sweet discovery near the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, spotting a sugar molecule in the space between stars for the first time.

Erythrulose, a sugar found in raspberries and self-tanners, was detected in a part of space known as the interstellar medium. The findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy on July 13, are more than a little treat: They could help us understand how life may have emerged on Earth—and how it might pop up elsewhere in the universe.

“This is the very first sugar to be detected in interstellar space, and it is important because it tells us that these sugars are more common than we previously thought,” says Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, a study co-author and an astrochemist at the Center for Astrobiology in Spain, to Ian Sample at the Guardian. “It opens the possibility for life to develop on other worlds in a similar way as it did on Earth.”

Astronomers have been searching for sugar in the cosmos for decades. In 2000, a team reported that they found the chemical glycolaldehyde in interstellar space. But glycolaldehyde is “not formally a sugar,” explains Brett McGuire, an astrochemist at MIT who was not involved in the new work, to Jenna Ahart at Nature. True sugars—carbohydrate molecules with carbon, oxygen and hydrogen—must contain at least three carbon atoms, he says.

Since then, true sugars have been discovered in asteroid and meteorite samples, which suggests they are present in interstellar space, but the elusive compounds had yet to be found there. So, Jiménez-Serra and her colleagues pointed two radio telescopes in Spain towards G+0.693−0.027, a molecular cloud of cold gas and dust about 27,000 light-years from Earth.

Substances swirling in the molecular cloud produce and absorb different wavelengths of light, and the patterns revealed the presence of the four-carbon sugar erythrulose. However, there were no signs of simpler sugars made with three carbon atoms.

“It defies expectations, in some ways, based on the chemistry we understand,” McGuire tells Rebecca Dzombak at the New York Times. The common understanding in astrochemistry is that molecules become larger one carbon atom at a time, Jiménez-Serra explains in a statement. Instead, the findings suggest that erythrulose might have formed from the combination of two distinct compounds each with two carbons: glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol.

Since molecular clouds are the birthplaces of planets, asteroids, comets and stars—and one birthed our solar system—the discovery means that interstellar erythrulose could have been an ingredient for Earth’s first nucleic acids, like pared-down versions of RNA. “That’s why the detection of erythrulose is so relevant for the origins of life,” Jiménez-Serra tells Nature.

What’s more, she and her colleagues calculated that between about 551,000 and 55.1 million U.S. tons of the sugar could have been delivered to Earth roughly four billion years ago via space rocks that were constantly pelting the young planet.

“This is a very exciting finding,” says Yoshihiro Furukawa, an astrochemist at Tohoku University in Japan who wasn’t involved in the work, to Christa Lesté-Lasserre at New Scientist. “It points to an additional source of sugar distribution beyond asteroids. We have been waiting for an actual detection like this.”

Sara Hashemi | Read More

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.