Super-complex organic molecules found in interstellar space

[rhoenix]

A team of scientists from the Instituto Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of Texas has succeeded in identifying one of the most complex organic molecules yet found in the material between the stars, the so-called interstellar medium. The discovery of anthracene could help resolve a decades-old astrophysical mystery concerning the production of organic molecules in space. The researchers report their findings in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.



'We have detected the presence of anthracene molecules in a dense cloud in the direction of the star Cernis 52 in Perseus, about 700 light years from the Sun,' explains Susana Iglesias Groth, the IAC researcher heading the study.

In her opinion, the next step is to investigate the presence of amino acids. Molecules like anthracene are prebiotic, so when they are subjected to ultraviolet radiation and combined with water and ammonia, they could produce amino acids and other compounds essential for the development of life

'Two years ago,' says Iglesias, 'we found proof of the existence of another organic molecule, naphthalene, in the same place, so everything indicates that we have discovered a star formation region rich in prebiotic chemistry.' Until now, anthracene had been detected only in meteorites and never in the interstellar medium. Oxidized forms of this molecule are common in living systems and are biochemically active. On our planet, oxidized anthracene is a basic component of aloe and has anti-inflammatory properties.

The new finding suggests that a good part of the key components in terrestrial prebiotic chemistry could be present in interstellar matter.

Since the 1980s, hundreds of bands found in the spectrum of the interstellar medium, known as diffuse spectroscopic bands, have been known to be associated with interstellar matter, but their origin has not been identified until now. This discovery indicates that they could result from molecular forms based on anthracene or naphthalene. Since they are widely distributed in interstellar space, they might have played a key role in the production of many of the organic molecules present at the time of the formation of the Solar System.

The results are based on observations carried out at the William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands and with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas in the United States.

More information: The new work appears in the paper “Anthracene cations toward the Perseus molecular complex", S. Iglesias Groth S., Manchado A., Rebolo R., González J. I., García Hernández A. (IAC); Lambert D. L. (McDonald Observatory, University of Texas), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press. A preprint of the paper can be seen at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4388

Honestly, I don't have any real interesting questions to post, or discussions to springboard from this. Except this - organic compounds...IN SPAAAAACE!

[frigidmagi]

When you say organic, you mean like carbon based?

[rhoenix]

I'm having a difficult time reading the science article on the discovery, but it appears so.

We report the discovery of a new broad interstellar (or circumstellar) band at 7088.8 +- 2.0 \AA coincident to within the measurement uncertainties with the strongest band of the anthracene cation (C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$) as measured in gas-phase laboratory spectroscopy at low temperatures (Sukhorukov et al.2004). The band is detected in the line of sight of star Cernis 52, a likely member of the very young star cluster IC 348, and is probably associated with cold absorbing material in a intervening molecular cloud of the Perseus star forming region where various experiments have recently detected anomalous microwave emission. From the measured intensity and available oscillator strength we find a column density of N$_{an^+}$= 1.1(+-0.4) x 10$^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$ implying that ~0.008% of the carbon in the cloud could be in the form of C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$. A similar abundance has been recently claimed for the naphthalene cation (Iglesias-Groth et al. 2008) in this cloud. This is the first location outside the Solar System where specific PAHs are identified. We report observations of interstellar lines of CH and CH$^+$ that support a rather high column density for these species and for molecular hydrogen. The strength ratio of the two prominent diffuse interstellar bands at 5780 and 5797 \AA suggests the presence of a ``zeta'' type cloud in the line of sight (consistent with steep far-UV extinction and high molecular content). The presence of PAH cations and other related hydrogenated carbon molecules which are likely to occur in this type of clouds reinforce the suggestion that electric dipole radiation from fast spinning PAHs is responsible of the anomalous microwave emission detected toward Perseus.

[frigidmagi]

I'm not sure I understood any of that but I got there are carbon molecules and the radiation they produce is somehow making microwave emissions?

[rhoenix]

I'm not sure I understood any of that but I got there are carbon molecules and the radiation they produce is somehow making microwave emissions?

I'd like to say one way or another, but I'm a complete layman here. I'll wait for others better trained than I to decipher it.

[General Havoc]

We report the discovery of a new broad interstellar (or circumstellar) band at 7088.8 +- 2.0 \AA coincident to within the measurement uncertainties with the strongest band of the anthracene cation (C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$) as measured in gas-phase laboratory spectroscopy at low temperatures (Sukhorukov et al.2004). The band is detected in the line of sight of star Cernis 52, a likely member of the very young star cluster IC 348, and is probably associated with cold absorbing material in a intervening molecular cloud of the Perseus star forming region where various experiments have recently detected anomalous microwave emission. From the measured intensity and available oscillator strength we find a column density of N$_{an^+}$= 1.1(+-0.4) x 10$^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$ implying that ~0.008% of the carbon in the cloud could be in the form of C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$. A similar abundance has been recently claimed for the naphthalene cation (Iglesias-Groth et al. 2008) in this cloud. This is the first location outside the Solar System where specific PAHs are identified. We report observations of interstellar lines of CH and CH$^+$ that support a rather high column density for these species and for molecular hydrogen. The strength ratio of the two prominent diffuse interstellar bands at 5780 and 5797 \AA suggests the presence of a ``zeta'' type cloud in the line of sight (consistent with steep far-UV extinction and high molecular content). The presence of PAH cations and other related hydrogenated carbon molecules which are likely to occur in this type of clouds reinforce the suggestion that electric dipole radiation from fast spinning PAHs is responsible of the anomalous microwave emission detected toward Perseus.

But if they adjust the flux capacitor, won't we run the risk of destabilizing the subspace field inducers?

[Mayabird]

Oh for crying out loud, I understood it and chemistry was my worst subject in college.

'Organic' in any sort of chemistry thing means "the molecules have carbon in it." Having struggled through two organic chemistry courses in college, let me say that "molecules that have carbon in it" is a very, very large and complex subject.

Anyway, it's significant because we're finding more and more complex organic molecules in these molecular clouds in interstellar space. Molecular clouds also happen to be where stars form, and by extension solar systems and planets. Which means that the building blocks for carbon-based life are already there to seed these planets, increasing the chances of finding extraterrestrial life. Which is awesome.

Also, PAHs are poly-aromatic hydrocarbons - yes that was from memory. I'll leave out the difficult and complex stuff: the important thing is that they're large complex organic molecules IN SPACE.

[General Havoc]

Oh for crying out loud, I understood it and chemistry was my worst subject in college.

Good for you. Not everybody subjected themselves to several years of general and organic chemistry in college, as not everyone is a masochist. I preferred to make study of interesting subjects such as history, not ones that require you to get up at 7 in the morning to study enzymes with three hundred pre-meds. If you're the sort who can identify what "N$_{an^+}$= 1.1(+-0.4) x 10$^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$" means at a glance, more power to you. I don't feel particularly foolish for being unable to.

[SirNitram]

In an attempt to boil this down as simply as possible: If this stuff gets some H20 and NH3,(Water and ammonia) the heavy bombardment it will get by ultraviolet light, because open space lacks protection like an atmosphere, it can and likely will become amino acids. Enough amino acids, they will start forming proteins. Most basic parts of life. As we look for each step further, we are approaching greater and greater odds that life isn't even close to what we thought. Yes, this includes the possibility of lifeforms in open space, or clouds of nebulas or similar. Or even catching rides on asteroids and comets, and finding planets where life starts getting delightfully complex.

[General Havoc]

I recall a theory that Earth itself may have been seeded with extraterrestrial life forms at some point early on in its history. I rather assume that this new finding increases those chances?

[frigidmagi]

Oh for crying out loud, I understood it and chemistry was my worst subject in college.

Amy dear, I'm an Anthropology major. We don't do chemistry. Ever. In fact I'm weird for taking physics classes (I'm not good at it but I like physics!).

If this stuff gets some H20 and NH3,(Water and ammonia) the heavy bombardment it will get by ultraviolet light, because open space lacks protection like an atmosphere, it can and likely will become amino acids. Enough amino acids, they will start forming proteins. Most basic parts of life. As we look for each step further, we are approaching greater and greater odds that life isn't even close to what we thought. Yes, this includes the possibility of lifeforms in open space, or clouds of nebulas or similar. Or even catching rides on asteroids and comets, and finding planets where life starts getting delightfully complex.

Thank you Martin. I got that. We would be talking mostly single celled life forms right? That's pretty damn amazing given what I know of space (we don't call it the Void for the poetry).

[Mayabird]

Stupid new computer. I couldn't even see before that some parts were bolded and that's what you were talking about. Those weird number lines look like figures that didn't translate well to online publishing, probably some chemical formulas. Even so, I get most of this just from my amateur interest in space, so I've read up a bit on spectroscopy, which is what most of that blurb is saying. They found some odd lines, and they figured out it has to be this molecule and that there was a lot of it. Other people detected it before but didn't figure out what it was.

I recall a theory that Earth itself may have been seeded with extraterrestrial life forms at some point early on in its history. I rather assume that this new finding increases those chances?

Maybe. This isn't life, of course, but as I mentioned it means that planets could be seeded with the building blocks of life as they're forming and chemical reactions could handle the rest.

But then, I've never been fond of those seeding hypotheses because so much of it reeks of people wanting to believe that life is magically special and couldn't have just come about from random chemical reactions that became self-replicating and non-random, so they push it off somewhere else where they can play pretend that they won't eventually have to explain how it started or just be honest that they think God did it instead of making hand-waving bull. Also, if they're right about the seeding, Earth/this solar system may be doing it right now for the galaxy, and they never go into that, despite that being the most interesting point to me. But this is me ranting.

As we look for each step further, we are approaching greater and greater odds that life isn't even close to what we thought. Yes, this includes the possibility of lifeforms in open space, or clouds of nebulas or similar. Or even catching rides on asteroids and comets, and finding planets where life starts getting delightfully complex.

Though Nitram gets it, so thank you. Of course, all this seeding stuff is hypothetical and we don't know enough about what's possible and what's not. There could be strange organisms living in the thin dust clouds of interstellar space. Or there might not be. We need to get off this rock and find out.

[SirNitram]

Thank you Martin. I got that. We would be talking mostly single celled life forms right? That's pretty damn amazing given what I know of space (we don't call it the Void for the poetry).

I wouldn't even go as far as single-celled: Self replicating strings of proteins is a likely cap. But if we did find single-cells, we're looking at uprooting most of what we know of life.

But Maya's right. Right now, we're looking at what is likely the building blocks out there. If they can 'seed', is another question. If they do, is there any enviroment they can't handle, short of so hot it burns away organics? Like the best science, this is opening new questions. Exciting questions.

[LadyTevar]

A couple years ago, didn't scientists reveal that they had found the molecular chain for Sugar/Glucose in a gaseous cloud?