Infant star's molecules suggest life's chemistry universal

[Judi Lynn]

Infant star's molecules suggest life's chemistry universal


By Robert Myles 1 hour ago in Science .

Munich - Using the Chile-based European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected the presence of the building blocks of life in an infant star system for the first time.

The discovery of complex organic molecules in material surrounding the infant star MWC 480 points to conditions for the chemistry of life to exist being universal, although such a precursor to life would not, in all cases mean that life itself would subsequently develop.

Using the Chile-based European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers detected the presence of complex organic molecules in the protoplanetary disc — material that in the course of time will coagulate to form planets — surrounding a star in its early stages of formation. The discovery will lend further weight to the belief that the conditions that gave birth our Sun and the Earth are by no means unique in the Universe.

With the aid of ALMA, an international team of astronomers examined the nascent star system MWC 480, reckoned to be only about one million years old. The Sun, by comparison, is more than four billion years old. The name MWC 480 is derived from the Mount Wilson Catalog of B and A stars with bright hydrogen lines in their spectra.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/infant-star-s-molecules-suggest-life-s-chemistry-universal/article/430196#ixzz3WkvTkIho

[djean111]

1. I have always thought it strange that anyone believed that our solar system was the only one

in the universe that could have formed life. I have very mixed feelings about actually contacting/being contacted by life from outside of Earth, though!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. CH3CN is a "complex" organic molecule ? Give me a f'ing break.

There's exactly one C-C bond in that molecule. That doesn't come near qualifying as "complex". Diatomic and triatomic fragments are not that scarce in molecular clouds. Just add H atoms (ubiquitous throughout the Universe) to a reactive, unsaturated C2N fragment and you've got your "complex" molecule, without even saturating all the bonds.

Calling this a "building block of life" is like calling a wire with a blob of solder on it a "building block of a supercomputer". (Arguably, that could be understating it a bit.)

C-triple bond-N molecules have intense IR absorptions, therefore are easily detected. No surprise we find a lot of them, even if there are only small amounts there. Note that the other molecule described in this article is HCN, which also has a C-N triple bond and a huge dipole moment, so (no surprise) it's easily detected. I wouldn't get too excited about finding a signal from a molecule that always give stronger signals than anything else around.

[caraher]

3. To an astronomer that's complex

Also to an astronomer, there are basically 3 elements - hydrogen, helium and "metals"

I think framing in terms of "building blocks of life" makes their observational work easier to sell to funding agencies.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Agree with the latter, thought mostly it's selling it to the simple-minded public.

All they want is an updated version of Genesis.

Astronomers should talk to chemists more often. Once you know what kinds of atoms are in molecular clouds, and that they've been bombarded by energetic radiation for millions of years, a little reflection is all it takes to reveal that there should be quite a mixture of simple molecules in there, with the composition being a result of both kinetic and thermodynamic factors. Oh, and the ones that are easiest to detect will be detected, and others may not be.