Naphthalene Found In Outer Space 180
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."
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
With one of these. [wikipedia.org]
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."
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]
simple molecule (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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:ummmm /confused (Score:5, Informative)
Re:abiogenesis is cool! (Score:5, Informative)
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!"