The sugar was detected in the galactic centre region of the Milky Way where there is a dense concentration of gases and stars, about 26,700 light years from Earth.
A group of scientists have made a sweet discovery after identifying naturally occurring sugar in the heart of the Milky Way, offering a sprinkling of new insight into the origins of life on Earth. According to a study published in the
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journal Nature Astronomy, the findings provide a clue to the source of the life-sustaining compound and how its vital presence came to be in all living things. Sugar’s inception on Earth has proven a longstanding mystery to researchers, who knew it must have been present in the early days of the cosmos, given life’s reliance on it, but whose attempts to recreate the chemical conditions that would have led to its emergence have largely fallen short, the study says. Get daily National news Scientists believe sugar may have been present on asteroids and comets that struck Earth during the primitive age of the solar system, as several types of it have been detected on asteroids and meteorites, according to the study, but the chemical’s source prior to that was unknown. Now, a group of astrochemists led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra at the Center for Astrobiology in Spain says it has cracked...
Read original source- Published
- Jul 13, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 13, 2026
- Source
- Global News
- Category
- Environment
- Read time
- 3 min
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