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."
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...
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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.
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Insightful)
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Woooshhh.
Bonus points, though, for fooling the moderators into modding you as "insightful" just because you used technical sounding terminology.
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but what's the chance of intelligent life evolving?
Re:The reason why this is important (Score:5, Funny)
Now, now, no need to be cynical.
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If it hasn't happened yet, how do you assign chance?
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Well, we'd also have to figure out how to get to said suitable planet, 'cause it sure ain't this one.
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Silicone based lifeforms in ST.org is a bit different.
ST2 had intelligent microbial lifeforms.
Which ST are you talking about?
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].
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Are you sure? http://sheryl.org/trekwomen_eve_mchuron.html [sheryl.org]
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That was the sixties! The breasts were real then!
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Is that an empirical statement? I suppose you have hands on experience about that?
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Perhaps, then, the Star Trek vision of the future, where all life forms are similar, could be correct, at least to the extent that they're all DNA and carbon based? Also, wouldn't this push the chances of life evolving on a suitable planet close to 100%?
Did you know what you said is profoundly intelligent but less than 2% of the people on this planet have a concept of what you said?
There is life out there boys and girls. Why are we wasting time here with stupid conventional armies fighting a cultural war when we could be out there finding it? I would so much like to be alive and be a witness to first contact.
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An alien life form is unlikely to be remotely similar in form or biology to a human. You've probably got a better shot at breeding with an ear of corn than an alien life form.
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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.
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The membranes are required for more advanced cells, but look at the components of our cells... most biologists I know believe that the things like the mitochondria, etc. just got "trapped" together in a membrane. Besides, if the lipids exist, they're hydrophobic in and of themselves, and will form into spheres automatically. And then there are conjectures about mechanisms like viruses and such (they don't have any lipid membranes) modifying the cells themselves. There's no magic random chemicals->life
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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
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It's not a dismissal of 'the soup' it's a redirection to a very important requirement to life as we know it.
But, I'm very skeptical of someone telling me that they KNOW a complex molecule (or, I would hope, a lot there of) exits 4,200 trillion miles away because the light that took 700 years to get to us is pristine and unaffected by any thing between us and there produces a particular result we were looking for.
And I say that they are 'looking' for a particular result because they don't even claim to hav
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Did you read the article or the /. summary?
I ask because the article makes it clear that they 'think' it is naphthalene but that it's not enough to state that it is conclusive.
If 'thinking' is enough to be conclusive then what they think is no better than institutionalized, dead religion.
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As soon as you mentioned 'the Oxygen Catastrophe' I chalked up the rest of your post as a work of fiction.
Sorry that's so harsh but I'm not spending my time on it.
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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.
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.
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but a moth without balls is called a female moth.
I take your point. At the time I wrote that, I was thinking of Ned Nederlander in 3 Amigos when a Tiger Moth flies overhead.
[Dusty Bottoms and Lucky Day thinks Ned Nederlander is saying "mail" plane]
Dusty Bottoms: What is it doing here?
Ned Nederlander: I think it's a male plane.
Dusty Bottoms: How can you tell?
Ned Nederlander: Didn't you notice its little balls?
And in case this needs explaining, the little balls he was referring to was the undercarriage of th
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Throw down your guns!
Not you, Dusty.
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That isn't true at all. It all depends on the previous relation of the balls and the moth. If the moth previously had balls, and now does not, that is eunich (or transexual).
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.
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It's more likely than you think!
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Mothra? Godzilla? Don't be silly, now. All we really know is that Rebellion will have to do without Mon Mothma's leadership in that area of the galaxy.
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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]
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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]
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
With one of these. [overstock.com]
.
.
.
times 1E17
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."
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They found the absorption spectrum of the naphthalene cation in the light.
I don't like cats. Let me know when they find the naphthalene dogion in the light.
Re:me no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Using Google, of course
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With these. [wikipedia.org]
And these. [wikipedia.org]
Or maybe there are folks who live there and have
this. [skype.com]
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By looking at the spectral bands and finding ones for the cation of it?
Unbeknownst to many (Score:5, Interesting)
which was changed during editing, but further reinforces the prescience of Mr. Clarke.
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deserves a tag (Score:2)
I don't understand (Score:2)
moths don't have balls?
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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.
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Done. [nasa.gov]
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?
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.
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.
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Interesting, but most of what you describe is not true for those homes I know, European homes that is. Most people I know don't use AC and open a window all the time unless it's freezing outside (or even then, though it's a terrible waste of energy). I hate sleeping with a closed window, in fact. And I don't know any city-dweller with a window screen...
I still haven't got many insects in the house, except for an occasional (fruit or other) fly. Certainly never had a moth or a cockroach (gross!) or even an a
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well, you see, here's the kicker, modern chemistry has gotten cheaper. farmers spray their crops to kill insects and fugal spores, a popular food of insects. this runs off into the fresh water stream, making that water have less fugal matter and fewer insects, furthermore many municipal governments spray for insects that carry dangerous disease like mosquitoes. this causes fewer insects to be born, not just mosquitoes and as a result bats, and some birds which are not sprayed for, get to eat their fill on
Re:No moths in outer space! (Score:5, Funny)
Also, I am AC.
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Yes, but chances are that you don't have only synthetics. Not only clothes, but rugs, curtains and much else are made with fibers.
Think of it this way: If you don't eat fish, and there's a smorgasboard in front of you where some plates are fish and some are meat, you're not going to starve. Not even if 3/4 of them are fish.
In my house, there are almost no synthetics at all, due to allergies. Plenty of wool, though. But no moths. Because they
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Spiffy spacesuits (Score:2)
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.
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Yes it is. It's like saying that Mars has molecules on is surface, brains have molecules inside, therefore there must be intelligent life on Mars. Organic molecules are trivial things compared to organisms. Don't get confused because they both start with o-r-g.
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Dewd. The girls that eat up panspermia are teh hawtness.
Now escape mom's basement, k?
/Some elements of post may be parent specific.
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Dewd. The girls that eat up panspermia are teh hawtness.
Eww, I hope that's not the part specific to your parents. TMI.
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]
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isn't that the stuff they use in mothballs? (Score:2)
so some idiot doesn't know moths can't survive in space
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Of course they can't.
And now we know why!!
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.
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.
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.
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OK. I'll have a go at it.
The theory is that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are end-of-the-food-chain survivors in the photochemistry that is thought to occur in certain types of nebulae where inter
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I didn't know anybody lost it (Score:2, Funny)
nuf sed
I don't believe it! (Score:2)
This must be a mistake.
Re:I don't believe it! (Score:4, Funny)
You obversely haven't played spore.
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)
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It's a given that many details will be "glossed over" in a 10 minute introduction. Having said that, I thought the video did a good job of addressing your second point by pointing out that proto-cells do not need the complexity of modern cells. A proto-self-replicator can make millions of "duds" but it will still be "successfull" as long as it makes just ONE non-dud.
Eega Beeva! (Score:2, Insightful)
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!"
Pournelle's church explanation (Score:2)
All the naphthalene out there are there because God's will, to see if can get rid of that pest.
that explains it (Score:3, Funny)
I knew I smelled something...
How can they be so sure it's naphthalene? (Score:2)
Space smells like mothballs? (Score:2)
Now I know why aliens wear wool.
OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
Time to invade
Time to Liberate(TM).
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Yes!
Why?
Our cars can run on Sneezes!
Get Cheney back here!
Re:OIL! (Score:5, Funny)
From Iraq to Mars (Score:2)
Not to defend the Iraq war (a major exercise in self-delusion) but note that it's cost us $500 billion so far. That much money is beyond any normal person's imagination, and sounds like it could buy anything. But compare it to the Apollo program, which cost about $150 billion in 2008 dollars.
I suppose that if we had three times the Apollo program, we could do a Mars equivalent, that would put a few people on the Martian service for a few days and bring them home. But what's the point? You can do a few thing
Re:ummmm /confused (Score:5, Informative)
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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.