Slashdot Log In
Naphthalene Found In Outer Space
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Sep 20, 2008 09:38 PM
from the wake-me-up-when-they-find-remulac dept.
from the wake-me-up-when-they-find-remulac dept.
Adam Korbitz writes with an excerpt from his blog on an exciting discovery in space: "A team of researchers led by Spanish scientists has published their discovery of the complex molecule naphthalene in an interstellar star-forming cloud, indicating many prebiotic organic molecules necessary for life as we know it could have been present when our own solar system formed. According to the new research — published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters — the naphthalene molecules were discovered 700 light-years from Earth in a star-forming region of the constellation Perseus, in the direction of the star Cernis 52."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
This is evidence of life. (Score:5, Funny)
Naphtalene--or better known as the primary ingredient in MOTHBALLS
At last. We know the secret coordinates of Mothra. (S)he lies in the constellation Perseus. This may lead us to discover the origins of Godzilla.
My girlfriend brought over brownies...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The reason why this is important (Score:5, Interesting)
Napthalene is a conjugated benzene ring compound. This then somewhat shows that complex ring compounds can be made in space. If these, then, can be made, then the jump to the DNA bases, and amino acid bases is not too far away.
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but what's the chance of intelligent life evolving?
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Funny)
Now, now, no need to be cynical.
Parent
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Funny)
Star Trek had silicon-based lifeforms. Silicone-based lifeforms are a bit more like this [today.com].
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That was the sixties! The breasts were real then!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A PhD in Biology once posed this to me:
Thus, it won't matter whether the primordial soup ever existed until it can be shown that said soup could become surrounded by a hydrophobic membrane on its own.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i think i saw this discussed in a TV program or documentary. if i remember correctly, there are already labs working on this problem. i think one university researcher has even successfully created such hydrophobic membranes using basic chemical reactions that could spontaneously occur under the right conditions.
obviously there are many different pieces of the puzzle that need to be solved, but the discovery of Naphthalene in space, like the lipid membrane problem, are just one more key element that we've g
Re:This is evidence of life. (Score:5, Funny)
So not only are the universe and my grandparents both extremely old, but they both smell the same now... great.
Parent
Re:This is evidence of life. (Score:4, Funny)
Mothballs are exciting only to moths.
A moth without balls is a eunuch.
I would say that mothballs are extremely important to moths.
Parent
Re:This is evidence of life. (Score:5, Funny)
Mothballs are exciting only to moths.
A moth without balls is a eunuch.
I would say that mothballs are extremely important to moths.
This is Slashdot so I can see I need to explain something.
I apologise for using a term you may be unfamiliar with, but a moth without balls is called a female moth.
Parent
me no RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)
How exactly does one detect specific molecules, 700 light years away?
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
With one of these. [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, this [wikipedia.org] is a better link.
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, in my hurry I was wrong again. These articles cover the astronomical uses of spectroscopy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_spectroscopy [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:me no RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. I wasn't even sure if you were kidding...I was about to mention that Spectroscopy can be done just fine at a distance...
Parent
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
With one of these. [overstock.com]
.
.
.
times 1E17
Parent
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
""We have detected the presence of the naphthalene cation in a cloud of interstellar matter located 700 lightyears from the Earth", says IAC researcher Susana Iglesias Groth."
Parent
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Using Google, of course
Parent
Unbeknownst to many (Score:5, Interesting)
which was changed during editing, but further reinforces the prescience of Mr. Clarke.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Unbeknownst to many (Score:4, Funny)
The next thing they'll find is that that region is where all the defunct spaceships are kept.
Parent
No moths in outer space! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No moths in outer space! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always wondered why the elderly are so keen on mothballs. Were there more moths around 75 years ago?
Parent
Re:No moths in outer space! (Score:5, Informative)
I've always wondered why the elderly are so keen on mothballs. Were there more moths around 75 years ago?
Natural fibers are more susceptible to them than synthetics, which we use more of now.
Parent
Re:No moths in outer space! (Score:5, Interesting)
A plausible answer, but a wrong one. It's not just moths that are more scarce inside our homes, but other flying insects too. Few homes have fly paper hanging in various rooms anymore. And young people today panic if they get a bumblebee inside the house -- they simply don't know how to deal with it, because they almost never have to.
The reason is simply that insects had an easier time flying through an open window or chimney than an air conditioner or electric/gas powered heater. The window screen is pretty new too -- even where available earlier, the windows were usually side-hinged and not sliding, and window screens had to be much bigger, and it was a hassle to add and remove them.
These days, you only get large flying insects entering when a door is open.
Cockroaches, ants and other crawling insects, you still get. And fruit flies, which people bring in with plants and produce.
Parent
Re:No moths in outer space! (Score:5, Funny)
Also, I am AC.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Another win for panspermia theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Literally "the origin of life is everywhere," panspermia theory [wikipedia.org] posits that the seeds life exist all over the universe. A related but separate theory called "exogenesis" posits that life began somewhere other than Earth and was delivered here.
We've observed vast clouds of organic material far larger than our galaxy in the reaches of space. Now we've discovered prebiotic chemicals there. It's not that much of a stretch to guess that life-as-we-know-it is not uncommon. Intelligence (such as it is?) may be less common. Given the vastness of space and time it's not unreasonable to hope that we're not alone.
Misread that one (Score:4, Insightful)
At first I thought it said Neanderthal.
This would be so much cooler then Naphtalene.
My first thought was something along these lines.
Exactly how did he get out there?
I suspected it was a crude version of this... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002387.html [defensetech.org]
simple molecule (Score:4, Informative)
Re:simple molecule (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. Now you need to explain why by accident vast quantities of the organic material hydrocarbons were converted to napthalene in sufficient quantity to be detected at a range of 400 lightyears, and then explain how this event is locally unique so that it didn't happen in every corner of the universe. Good luck with that. May I offer you a noodle? You need only let it touch you to feel its effects.
Parent
Would it really be that hard? (Score:4, Interesting)
While the production of naphthalene is rare, I doubt it is unique. They are only looking 700 light years out.
You figure that there's some set mixing, temperature and pressure that coupled with the right raw materials, kicks out different kinds of organic chemicals. Park the right cloud of raw good next to the right kind of star and in the right kind of gravity area, and, it seems reasonable that all sorts of organics might be found eventually all over the universe.
For all we know, our solar system just whipped right through a cloud of stellar cooked organics, and we practically just have life rained down on our little world.
Parent
Re:Would it really be that hard? (Score:5, Interesting)
And since all the stars we can closely observe have planets, to expect that the star that went supernova and gave us all the elements above Iron did not also have them is perhaps silly.
So... Is the "stuff of life" common or not? Further study is needed and is under way. We may discover in the Oort cloud the seeds of life. If we do, that should lay the question to rest.
Parent
abiogenesis is cool! (Score:4, Informative)
For those not familiar with the field of abiogenesis, it is a truly remarkable field of study. The search for the first origin of life on our planet, or rather when organic matter achieved 'life' as we understand it.
I find it quite interesting personally, how the primordial sludge brewed into our very first ancestor.
Excelsior!!
Re:abiogenesis is cool! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Again? (Score:4, Informative)
The same observatory reported the same thing 15 years ago: www.iac.es/folleto/research/preprints/files/PP08019.pdf
"And we're going to KEEP discovering it until you get it right!"
that explains it (Score:3, Funny)
I knew I smelled something...
OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
Time to invade
Time to Liberate(TM).
Parent
Re:OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I don't believe it! (Score:4, Funny)
You obversely haven't played spore.
Parent
Re:ummmm /confused (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
When a electron leaves an excited state it emits a photon.
Thus explaining the origin of photon-crusted socks in the hamper.
Re:ummmm /confused (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't know the difference between microbes and molecules, you should probably go read some science books.
Parent