Sugar Molecules Found Around Young Star

A sweet discovery made by astronomers determines that the building blocks of life are in the right place. The new discovery made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows the presence of sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young sun like star.

A simple form of sugar called glycolaldehyde was found surrounding a young binary star called IRAS 16293-2422 that is located 400 light years away, comparatively closer to Earth. It was observed on 2011 August 16-17 as part of the ALMA Science Verification (SV) program in band 6. Prior to this, presence of glycoaldehyde was detected in two places in space so far, first towards the Galactic Centre cloud Sgr B2 and in the high-mass hot molecular core G31.41+0.31. But for the first time it is seen at a close distance to a sun like star that is equivalent to the distance of Uranus from Sun, indicating the presence of chemical compound in the system that was needed to support life at the time of planet formation.

"In the disc of gas and dust surrounding this newly formed star, we found glycolaldehyde, which is a simple form of sugar, not much different to the sugar we put in coffee," explains Jes Jorgensen (Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark), the lead author of the paper. "This molecule is one of the ingredients in the formation of RNA, which -- like DNA, to which it is related -- is one of the building blocks of life."

"What it is really exciting about our findings is that the ALMA observations reveal that the sugar molecules are falling in towards one of the stars of the system," says team member Cecile Favre (Aarhus University, Denmark). "The sugar molecules are not only in the right place to find their way onto a planet, but they are also going in the right direction."

"A big question is: how complex can these molecules become before they are incorporated into new planets? This could tell us something about how life might arise elsewhere, and ALMA observations are going to be vital to unravel this mystery," concludes Jes Jorgensen.

Details of the discovery at the European Southern Observatory in Chile will be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.