Raspberry sugar spotted in interstellar space, a sweet discovery that could reveal clues about life's origins
Is space … sweet? As it turns out, interstellar space has sugar — and it's the same type of sugar that's found in raspberries (and self-tanners, surprisingly). A sugar compound called erythrulose has been found near the center of our galaxy, swirling amongst the gas and dust like grains of sugar in a cotton candy machine. More specifically, this sugar was detected in a molecular cloud in the interstellar medium, or the space between star systems in a galaxy. And while we may not be