Astrochemists have discovered another organic chemical in the same region of space
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/10/699.jpg?resize=136%2C142&ssl=1)
where other researchers had identified the first extraterrestrial sugar (SN:
6/24/00, p. 405). On Earth, the alcohol is used to make packaging polymers.
The finding of space-based molecules such as sugar and the newly identified vinyl
alcohol could help researchers determine how complex molecules first formed in the