By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
MADISON, Wis. -- Astronomers think they have found evidence that some of
the stuff of life could exist out between the stars. The molecular clue could
not be any less exotic. It is the presence of vinegar in a cloud of gas and
dust near the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy of the solar system.
In observations by radiotelescopes, astronomers at the University of
Illinois at Champaign-Urbana detected molecules of acetic acid, which is the
pungent, colorless liquid that gives vinegar its taste and odor. More
significantly, acetic acid combined with ammonia -- already known to exist in
interstellar space -- would create a simple amino acid. And amino acids are
the building blocks of proteins and DNA, essential ingredients of life.
"With the discovery of acetic acid, it is very plausible that simple amino
acids do exist in space," said Dr. Lewis E. Snyder, director of the
university's Laboratory of Astronomical Imaging.
The discovery was described Monday at a meeting of the American
Astronomical Society here at the University of Wisconsin. The observations
were made by a new generation of radiotelescopes, first by antennas at Hat
Creek, Calif., and then confirmed by other antennas near Bishop, Calif.
More complex molecules have been found before in space, and researchers
have long speculated that biologically important molecules could form there.
Some scientists even speculate that organic material arriving from space
could have seeded the first life on Earth, though the most favored
explanation centers on chemical processes on Earth itself. The earliest
established evidence puts the origin of terrestrial life at about 3.6 billion
years ago, about a billion years after the formation of the solar system.
But in an interview, Snyder suggested the role of astrochemistry must not
be overlooked. "In 100 years," he said, "it may be appreciated that we are
looking at part of the answer here in astrochemistry, and that molecules
arriving from space on comets and asteroids perhaps were important catalysts
for starting life in the solar system."
In any event, Dr. David M. Mehringer, a postdoctoral research associate at
Illinois, who analyzed the findings, said the arrangement of oxygen and
carbon elements in the molecule served as a backbone for larger molecules
that were biologically important. The vinegar molecule is the second chemical
with such an arrangement to be detected in space; the other is the simpler
molecule formic acid, discovered in 1975.
The vinegar molecule is one step -- the addition of ammonia to acetic acid
-- short of glycine, the simplest amino acid.
The vinegar was detected in a dense cloud known as Sagittarius B2, 25,000
light-years from Earth and only 300 from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Copyright 1996 The New York Times
Back to UFO news update menu
All rights reserved to WUFOC and NÄRKONTAKT. If you reprint or quote any part of the content,
you must give credit to: WUFOC, the free UFO-alternative on the Internet, http://www.wufoc.com