Astronomers find a four-carbon sugar in deep space

The space between stars may seem like a barren desert, but over the past few decades scientists have been finding all sorts of interesting chemicals in it. From the precursors to proteins to the building blocks of cell membranes, there has been discovery after discovery of new molecules in the giant gas clouds between the stars. Now, a new paper available on the arXiv preprint server details the discovery of the first-ever four-carbon sugar in the interstellar medium (ISM), and it is another brick on the path to understanding how life on Earth first developed.