Sugar found in raspberries detected near the centre of the Milky Way | ABC NEWS

[00:00:00]Astronomers have detected signs of a type of sugar in gas clouds near the center of the Milky Way. While it's not uncommon to find sugar in the cosmos, authors of the study say this is the first discovery of sugar in interstellar space. And this natural sugar is found here on Earth. It is in raspberries and, wait for it, fake tan lotions. To explain all of this, astronomer at Swinburne University, Dr. Rebecca Allen, joins me now. Dr. Allen, thank you for joining us this morning.

[00:00:28]Tell us what has been found and where exactly.

[00:00:32]>> So, this is a type of sugar that's been found that you outlined. And I think what's exciting about this is that astronomers found this in a what's called a giant molecular cloud. Now, we care about these because this is the birthplace of stars. And we know when our stars form, that's where we get planets. And on our planets, like Earth, we have life. So, sugars are really important connection there because when we find sugar just floating around in space, that means it's able to form in processes unlike that we see um related to animals on Earth, that it could just kind of form spontaneously. And we think it's a really important ingredient because we know DNA and RNA uh comes from these sugars. That's how it's formed.

[00:01:14]>> And I mean, it's a bit of a fun fact there, but it's it's in trace amounts in raspberries and also fake tan lotions, as we said.

[00:01:21]Just explain to us, why would this be in space?

[00:01:25]>> Well, so uh sugars are mostly made out of carbon. And carbon is one of the most abundant elements in our universe. And carbon loves to bond uh with other elements. And so, this is why we see it be so prolific. This is why we come up with the term that we're carbon-based life forms. So, it's not surprising that we would find it, especially molecular clouds, which are full of these other tiny little particles of of dust and ices. And that's where you can see these these complex molecules form. So, that's the exact right kind of mixing pot where we would think we would find this. Um, but it's amazing to actually see it because it's it's a larger structure sugar um that has previously been found.

[00:02:06]>> And tell us a bit more about the significance of this. What does it What does it tell us about what's out there?

[00:02:12]And it does it give us any clues to what happens here on Earth as well?

[00:02:16]>> Absolutely. So, what it's showing us in these vast clouds where stars are formed over billions of years, we see the cycle what we call the cycle of star formation. So, stars are formed, they live their lives, and then they die sometimes in spectacular deaths like supernova. And so, all those wonderful materials which are made in the center of the stars are then belched out back into the universe. So, over billions of years, we get heavier and heavier elements. And this, you know, these molecular clouds are really the kind of soup of ingredients. So, when we see that these types of ingredients in molecular clouds, what it shows us is early in our solar system's history after the Sun was forming and the planets were forming, in that early stage, those building blocks that we see for DNA and RNA could have actually come from asteroids and comets that were hitting the Earth. So, it's actually one of the best clues that we have to understanding where did the fundamental building blocks of life come from? And that we're actually finding them drifting in outer space.

[00:03:14]>> And I mean, it is really mind-boggling that we we're talking on the molecular level, but we we're talking about space.

[00:03:20]I mean, just how was this discovery made?

[00:03:23]>> Absolutely. So, this is a type of science which is called spectroscopy.

[00:03:28]Every element, every molecule has its own signature. Um, and this is where spectroscopy comes in. So, the astronomers that made this discovery, they were using what are called radio telescopes. Now, radio is one of the longest wavelengths of light, and it's also lower in energy. And that's because molecules, the way that we see these kind of energy uh spectrum uh is because they're actually rotating. And so we see what are called uh rotational transitions and these create very distinct lines of light. And so astronomers using radio telescopes, they were able to see this exact signature and they were able to verify it. So there's really nothing else that it could be. And spectroscopy is one of our most powerful tools because through identifying the signatures and being able to understand what they are in the labs on Earth, not only does it tell us what the universe is made of, but it's how we actually know how far away things are from us in the universe.