Science Blog - Cold Sugar in Space Provides Clue to the Molecular Origin of Life: Astronomers have discovered a frigid reservoir of simple sugar molecules in a cloud of gas and dust some 26,000 light-years away, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discovery suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space. The astronomers detected the 8-atom sugar molecule glycolaldehyde in a gas-and-dust cloud called Sagittarius B2. Such clouds, often many light-years across, are the raw material from which new stars and planets are formed.
......Glycoaldehyde is composed of 2 carbon atoms, 2 oxygen atoms and 4 hydrogen atoms and is called a 2-carbon sugar. Glycolaldehyde can react with a 3-carbon sugar to produce a 5-carbon sugar called ribose. Ribose molecules form the backbone structure of the molecules DNA and RNA, which carry the genetic code of living organisms.....
