Detection of a Four-Carbon Sugar in Interstellar Space

Although life tends to find a way, something first has to kickstart said lifeforms. Exactly how the first biological cells formed on Earth – and potentially on other worlds – remains an enduring mystery. Some theories point to the early Earth’s surface conditions as a viable laboratory for the self-assembly of the first viable membranes, RNA, DNA and associated molecular machinery, while seeding of the Earth’s primitive atmosphere by sugars and other precursors from asteroids and kin is required