Posted on 07/14/2026 3:30:18 PM PDT by Twotone
The space between stars just got a little sweeter.
Astronomers have detected a type of sugar in space that's also found in raspberries and self-tanners. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in what's called the interstellar medium: thin clouds of gas and dust littered between stars.
Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts. Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA. Scientists are itching to know how sugars form because they're a key ingredient for life as we know it.
Using two dish-shaped radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a large gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way. They identified the sugar in gas form by comparing telescope signals to samples in the lab. It's the latest kind of sugar detected in space — in a region crossed by NASA's twin Voyager, the farthest spacecraft to ever travel from Earth.
The results were published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Scientists have found interesting chemistry in our galaxy, including building blocks for genetic material and parts of the cell. They spotted a cousin to table sugar near the center of the Milky Way about 25 years ago, and black grains from asteroid Bennu retrieved by NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft yielded other sugars and a "gum-like substance."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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Jim
Discovered just in time.
Cuba has to import sugar thanks to socialism and we will too if we keep electing bitter young women.
Makes sense. Raspberries are what makes certain planets look red.
Years ago, they were telling us that outer space smelled like raspberries...
https://biologyinsights.com/what-does-space-smell-like-raspberries-and-burnt-metal/
“They spotted a cousin to table sugar near the center of the Milky Way”
The jokes just write themselves...
They laughed me right out of the university.
I have long held that the Earth will eventually be invaded not by spaceships, but by giant killer raspberries. This article finally vindicates me! Perhaps I will now be awarded the PhD that I so richly deserve.
Killer Tomatoes are worse!
They're coming for us.
Awesome! God is so awesome!
So that’s where the Archies went.
Maybe it was just from a bee landing on the telescope.
Rogue space pirates can make space hootch as they search for wenches?
Bkmk
They been snorting cocaine again.
I love the taste of tomato’s and raspberries... Winner, winner... No chicken dinner. Just tomato and raspberries forever and ever throughout the universe.
😆
😫
Once again The Simpsons are ahead of the curve.
That is amazing!
Let’s go all the way, all the way into space
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