The study revealed that sugar molecules, which are a source of energy in living organisms, are formed during the formation of stars. The result of the research shows with high probability that organic molecules, which are the starting blocks of all life on Earth, have cosmic origin.
The temperature in the densest parts of molecular clouds located in interstellar space is from -268 to -263 ° C, their substances are concentrated mainly in the form of solid particles covered with icy mantles (cosmic ice). Complex organic molecules, including prebiotic ones, are formed in them.
There are mainly simple molecules here: methyl alcohol (CH3OH), acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) and more.
From these two substances, the simplest sugar can be synthesized “in the correct form – hemiacetal (R/S)-1-methoxyethanol,” the publication writes, citing scientists.
Researchers from the University of Samara and the Samara branch of the PN Institute of Physics, Lebedev RAS, together with their US colleagues, have proven that this process occurs even at extremely low cosmic temperatures.
At the same time, this sugar formation process was both modeled and experimentally reproduced.
Samara University graduate student Anatoly Nikolaev noted that detailed analysis of meteorites has shown that biologically important molecules such as ribose (a monosaccharide) can withstand the harsh conditions of space, so some of these complex molecules may have been delivered to Earth at a very early time. Years serving as an “exogenous source of biomolecules” likely provided an additional pathway to the formation of biologically important molecules during our planet’s earliest life stage.
Source: Ferra
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