So, I've been teaching a class at our university called "Life Beyond Earth." In addition to taking up all of my time (in a good way), it has reminded me that the "stuff of life" is all around us in the galaxy, and in the universe. It helps when I see that, just this week, a new and complex molecule has been discovered in the interstellar gas in our galaxy.
Astronomers from the Instituto Astrofísica de Canarias and the University of Texas identified anthracene, the most complex organic molecule discovered to date in the interstellar medium.
SLIDE SHOW: Top 10 Places To Find Alien Life
With a molecular backbone of carbon rings, this molecule, discovered in absorption along the line of sight to a star 700 light-years away, is pre-biotic. Although it is not quite an amino acid, the building blocks of proteins, given time and a bit of energy, pre-biotic molecules can assemble into amino acids.
Amino acids have not yet been found in interstellar space, although many types of amino acids have been found in a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, which also happen to be as old as the solar system itself.
It is not such a stretch to see how amino acids may form in a baby solar system with molecules like anthracene present in the gas from which stars and solar systems form.
And so we are reminded, as we look for life out there in the universe, that despite the eerie silence, the building blocks of life seem to be incredibly common in our galaxy. There are still many more unidentified lines in infrared and millimeter-wave spectra, and even more complex molecules may eventually be found.
Tags: Astronomy
comments ( )