Even crippled, even without power, even without applause from the beings who first made it, Voyager 1 may yet make itself the Earth's finest achievement.

Researchers have long suspected early life may have been helped by sugars brought to Earth by asteroids – now a sugar found in raspberries has been spotted in a cosmic cloud nearly 27 light years away

Sugars are key biomolecules in living organisms, as they form the backbone of DNA and RNA and play a fundamental role in metabolic processes. In theories of the origin of life, sugars are also essential for the synthesis of the first nucleic acids.

A group of astronomers has detected a sugar molecule swirling inside a cloud of gas and dust near the centre of our galaxy. They are calling the molecule — a compound with four carbon atoms called erythrulose — the first true sugar spotted in ‘interstellar’ space.

Astronomers have discovered the first true sugar molecule, erythrulose, in interstellar space near the centre of the Milky Way, a finding that could offer new clues about how the building blocks of life formed and reached Earth.

The discovery was made using two powerful radio telescopes, the 40-meter Yebes telescope and the 30-meter IRAM telescope.

An astrophotograph of the interstellar comet known as 3I/ATLAS highlights its green coma and a wandering blue-tinted ion tail. (Copyright Victor Sabet and Julien De ...

Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the c