Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Simple sugar molecule
Simple sugar molecule
Also called glycolaldehyde, the simple sugar molecule is composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and plays a key role in the chemical reaction that forms ribonucleic acid (RNA), a crucial biomolecule present in all living cells.
Simple sugar molecules are found abundantly on Earth, usually in the form of an odourless white powder with a sweet taste. However, sugar has never been found in outer space until recently. In August 2012, a team of European and American astronomers said they had spotted a simple sugar molecule in a gas cloud surrounding a 10,000-year-old star similar to the sun. The star, called IRAS 16293-2422, is about 400 light years from Earth. Simple sugar molecule or glycolaldehyde are likely formed by radiation from the star hitting even simpler molecules floating through space.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Astronomy
- Category: Planetary science
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Mount Everest
Mount Everest (Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ; Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰; Nepali: सगरमाथा) is the highest mountain in the world and the 8.848 meters. The area is located ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
Browers Terms By Category
- Lumber(635)
- Concrete(329)
- Stone(231)
- Wood flooring(155)
- Tiles(153)
- Bricks(40)
Building materials(1584) Terms
- Algorithms & data structures(1125)
- Cryptography(11)
Computer science(1136) Terms
- Plastic injection molding(392)
- Industrial manufacturing(279)
- Paper production(220)
- Fiberglass(171)
- Contract manufacturing(108)
- Glass(45)
Manufacturing(1257) Terms
- Software engineering(1411)
- Productivity software(925)
- Unicode standard(481)
- Workstations(445)
- Computer hardware(191)
- Desktop PC(183)
Computer(4168) Terms
- Cultural anthropology(1621)
- Physical anthropology(599)
- Mythology(231)
- Applied anthropology(11)
- Archaeology(6)
- Ethnology(2)