...glad I won't be eating any interstellar dust
Posted on 04/15/2002 9:29:38 PM PDT by LarryLied
United States National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) astronomers have discovered ethylene glycol, better known as the chemical commonly found in anti-freeze, in a massive interstellar dust cloud.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre spokesperson Jan Hollis says the molecule was one of the five largest organic molecules discovered in space so far.
"[The molecule] is associated with the formation of more complex sugar molecules that are necessary for life," Ms Hollis said.
The discovery points to the fact that "more complex sugars, like ribose, may be occurring in interstellar clouds," she said.
The molecules were found with the use of the United States' National Science Foundation's 12-metre radio telescope in a molecular cloud called Sagittarius, located some 26,000 light-years from earth near the centre of the Milky Way.
Some scientists have even speculated that the Earth could have been 'seeded' with complex molecules from passing comets, which were formed from the condensing gas nebula that produced our solar system.
Better understanding of interstellar chemistry may provide pointers to how biological molecules were created on the early Earth according to the team of researchers.
The study, due to be published in the Astrophysical Journal of Letters, was carried out by Ms Hollis, Frank Lovas from the University of Illinois, Philip Jewell of NRAO and Laurent Coudert of the University of Paris-Campus d'Orsay.
...glad I won't be eating any interstellar dust
It's okay, I never liked those things anyway.
This d-mn intern used the wrong liquid to wash the lenses of the telescope, again.
I told him numerous times: you put ethylene glycol into your car, not on the lense of the telescope...
Damn. I like frozen Milky Ways. This just complicates things. Prolly takes longer, too.
Bullshit!
The godless, pagan scientists spreading anti-Christian disinformation again.
You realize that Jupiter does not have a surface, it's a gas giant, and that 290K is actually pretty pleasant, a nice Texas day in early spring (290K = 17C = 62.6 F).
Give me a hot air balloon and a decent autopilot and you could mine Helium3 from Jupiter's clouds with little more than an oxygen mask (check the air pressure though, that could get really rough)
Great discovery guys -- now get your fat Dunkin' Donut @sses back to work and find Alf. That might be something worth getting excited about...
Sweet!
Some interglactic 65 Ford Fairlaine must have blown out it's radiator.
I did not know that. Does that mean that the comet that slammed into it a few years ago (images captured by the Hubbell) left no crater? It made a splash that looked similar to a lawn sprinkler toward the back side of the planet.
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