Posted on 08/29/2012 6:19:09 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Top astro-boffins are chuffed today to announce that they have detected large amounts of chemicals necessary to birth alien life - not to mention some alcohol - drifting in space around a young star just 400 light-years away.
“In the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust surrounding the young, newly formed star, we found glycolaldehyde molecules, which are a simple form of sugar. It is one of the building blocks in the process that leads to the formation of RNA and the first step in the direction of biology,” explains astrophysicist Jes Jørgensen, a professor at Copenhagen uni.
Jørgensen and his colleagues observed the protoplasm-wreathed star using a large new international telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), situated on the barren high-altitude Atacama desert plains in northern Chile. The prof believes that the team has a good handle on just how it can be that the elements of life had formed in outer space, without need of any hospitable Earth-style world as a habitat.
As a Copenhagen uni statement explains:
At first the gas and dust cloud is extremely cold (only around 10 degrees above absolute zero at minus 273 degrees C) and simple gases such as carbon monoxide and methane settle on particles of dust and solidify as ice. Here on the particles of dust, the otherwise volatile gases come close to each other and can bond together and form more complex molecules. When the star has been formed in the middle of the gas and dust cloud, it emits heat, and the inner parts of the rotating cloud surrounding the star is heated to around room temperature, after which the chemically complex molecules on the particles of dust evaporate as gas.
The research suggests that the basic bits required to assemble complicated proteins can be formed in a solar system before planets even appear, possibly suggesting that if a hospitable world should come into existence the early strides in the development of life may already have been undertaken. However it's not at all clear just how space sugar, alcohol etc would interact with planets as they form. What is clear is that more knowledge of space protoplasm can tell us a lot about aliens.
"One of the big questions is whether it is common that these organic molecules are formed so early in the star and planet formation process – and how complex they can become before they are incorporated into new planets," explains Jørgensen. "This could potentially tell us something about the possibility that life might arise elsewhere and whether precursors to biology are already present before the planets have been formed.”
The new research is to be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. ®
Okay...We Have an "unknown star" covered in some fluid...We needed this..LOL
Ahhhh..... the old 'chicken or the egg' mystery.
All 'unknowns' are approached that way.
In relation to the concept that planets might be formed with the complex molecules needed to create life already in place, is it possible that life on Earth started underground and then moved to the surface ?
It would seem that being underground might protect these early ‘complex’ molecules from damage during the timespan it must have taken to combine to form more active and mobile life forms. Early Earth was probably a real hell hole.
I was thinking the same thing.....
When I saw the words “Young Alcoholic Star,” I thought some Hollywood type went off the deep end again.
Yeah...I read the headline and thought something happened to Miley Cyrus.
I just love it when boffins get chuffed. Especially astro-boffins. Chuffed astro-boffins, huzzah!
Nah, that would take over three months at warp 10!
I think we might share a brain!
Mark
“Young alcoholic star ‘covered in fluids needed for birth of alien life’”
I thought this article was about Robert Downey, Jr.
Gee, after reading through the thread, I saw that I’m not alone in thinking some young Hollywood type went loco. Didn’t anyone proofread the headline before it went to press?
When we scientists do research, we're entering unknown territory. We don't have any answer books to tell us if we're correct or not. No matter how positive we are that our experimental results are correct, someone else can always come along and show how we are wrong. So we are trained to write in such a way as to express the uncertainty implicit in our work. (Yes, I am a scientist.)
The time to be suspicious is if you see someone claiming to be a scientist who does not use what I call "hedge words" and, instead, says everything as if it is established, undisputable fact. They are most likely a quack trying to sell you a bill of goods. That is especially applicable in the "global warming" debate--most of those pushing it don't use hedge words.
Guess these guys thought that worked well so they are trying it!
Movie magic....LOL!
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