Researchers have detected a sugar in the interstellar medium for the first time. Yet researchers studying life’s origins still face a major puzzle: laboratory experiments indicate that prebiotic conditions on early Earth would not have produced enough sugar. Until now, however, no sugar had been identified directly in interstellar space. A four-carbon sugar appears in spaceAn international group led by CAB researcher Izaskun Jiménez-Serra has detected erythrulose, the first sugar identified in the interstellar medium. Its presence in interstellar space points to another possible supply of sugars that may have contributed to the earliest metabolic and replication processes on Earth.