A 4-Carbon Sugar Found in Interstellar Space — A Candidate Ancestor of DNA
June 13, 2026Erythrulose, a 4-carbon sugar, has been detected for the first time in the molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027 near the galactic center. It could be the raw material for TNA, a simpler genetic molecule than DNA. Even more surprising: the sugar wasn't built one carbon at a time — it formed by snapping two 2-carbon fragments together.