An asteroid has helped researchers discover the largest molecule ever detected by radioastronomy, and the third-largest identified in space.
An asteroid has helped researchers discover the largest molecule ever detected by radioastronomy, and the third-largest identified in space.
The discovery, published today in Science, provides further clues to an astrochemical mystery: Where does carbon, the building block of life, come from and go to in the universe, including in our own solar system?
Researchers detected pyrene, a type of large carbon-containing molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), in the Taurus molecular cloud—a stellar nursery that is relatively close to Earth at only 430 light years away, or about four quadrillion kilometres (that’s 15 zeroes).
Read more at: University of British Columbia
A representation of 1-cyanopyrene detected in space. (Photo Credit: NSF/NSF NRAO/AUI/S. Dagnello)
