This cute bugger to the left is the molecule amino acetonitrile, a close cousin of amino acids. It’s an organic molecule — it’s based on carbon — and it’s thought to be a precursor, a building block of the simplest amino acid, glycine.
Cool, huh?
Well, yeah, but that’s not the thing. The thing is, this molecule has been found floating in space near the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
That’s cool.
We know that there are complex organic molecules in space. Just like individual atoms, molecules can emit light at very specific colors, and by finding those colors of emitted light we can detect the molecules. In general, the light is actually in the radio wavelength part of the spectrum, so giant radio telescopes are used to find them. The observations are a bit tricky, because molecules have lots of ways of emitting different kinds of light, so the total energy the molecule has to emit at any particular color gets gets spread out over all the different colors. Think of it this way: if you poke a hole in a milk carton, the milk will rush out, but if you poke 100 holes, the milk will dribble out of each hole. Think of it this way: the more lottery winners there are, the less each winner gets from the contest. In the same way, because molecules can emit light in many colors, each color gets less of the total energy, making it fainter and harder to detect.
So molecules, especially complex organic ones like amino acetonitrile, are pretty faint emitters and hard to see. But scientists at Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, did it. They identified 51 different specific colors of radio light coming from a dense hot cloud of gas near the galactic center, and those colors are tagged as being from our friend above. This cloud, called B2, is a known haven for organic molecules such as formaldehyde, ethyl alcohol, and acetic acid (given those last two, my guess is that alien winemakers in B2 have their successes and failures).
Amino acids are the building blocks of life, as biologists are fond of saying; they are the basis of proteins and are the way our genetic code is mapped in our DNA our DNA is coded to make them. Finding them in space is an interesting task, because that would mean the conditions to form amino acids are easy to come by. Plus, it’s possible for them to literally rain down from space. Amino acids have been found in meteorites, for example. But never in space.
So finding amino acetonitrile is a big step in finding a proper amino acid in space. It means that another big piece of the amino acid puzzle is available in space, and that’s encouraging. Finding a true amino acid source in space may just mean we need to be more diligent and look more carefully. It’s there, and announcing its presence, but it’s whispering.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
“ethyl alcohol, and acetic acid (given those last two, my guess is that alien winemakers in B2 have their successes and failures).”
Seems to me FSM is giving a backyard party
Cool indeed. I’m not such a fan of panspermia , but things like this make me wonder . Nevertheless it all ads up to the great probability of life being not such a rare event in the universe .
March 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Actually, the rate at which the milk comes out will depend only on the depth of the hole below the surface of the milk and its size, but not on the number of holes.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] Phil Plait picked this up and will give you the low down. I’m interested in something else though. [...]
March 26th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hmmm… I think you’re right. I came up with the analogy on the fly, but didn’t put it through any rigorous mental testing. OK, time to change that bit!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Yup. Static head. rho * g * h
March 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Very cool!
From the Max-Planck Institute website you referenced:
“The simplest amino acid, glycine (NH2CH2COOH), has long been searched for in the interstellar medium but has so far not been unambiguously detected. Since the search for glycine has turned out to be extremely difficult, a chemically related molecule was searched for, amino acetonitrile (NH2CH2CN), probably a direct precursor of glycine.”
Are there any working theories as to why amino acetonitrile might exist in inter-stellar space while glycine, thus far anyhow, does not? Or is it simply a matter of glycine being more difficult to detect?
March 26th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Actually, they’re manufacturing vinegar (for the Italian dressing) to supply the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It’s going to be a big crowd, so they had to start early!
I don’t buy into panspermia particularly – at least, not if it’s defined as actual living organisms coming from space – but explanations of the origin of life on Earth are much simpler if many of the organic molecules were already around.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Phil, according to a report in the New Scientist Print Edition (I think) in July, 2002, of work by Lewis Snyder, University of Illinois and Lewis Snyder, University of Illinois and Yi-Jehng Kuan, National Taiwan Normal University amino acids have been found in interstellar space. From the record I kept (I have not been able to locate the paper):
“Back in 1994, a team led by astronomer Lewis Snyder of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced preliminary evidence of the simplest type of amino acid, glycine, but the finding did not stand up to closer examination (New Scientist magazine, 11 June 1994, p 4).
Now Snyder and Yi-Jehng Kuan of the National Taiwan Normal University say they really have found glycine. “We’re more confident [this time],” says Kuan. “We have strong evidence that glycine exists in interstellar space.”
The new research was presented at the Bioastronomy 2002 meeting, held on Hamilton Island, Queensland between 8 and 12 July.”
March 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
[...] ♦ An organic farm in the galactic center [...]
March 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
The aliens could use Acetonitrile to make acrylic fibres or Nitrile Rubber if I recall correctly!
March 26th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
they are the basis of proteins and are the way our genetic code is mapped in our DNA
Hi Phil, you might have worded this such that it might be interpreted as containing a small mistake. I don’t know if you intended it this way.
Amino acids are the buildings blocks of protein. Nucleic acids are the building blocks of DNA. The sequence of nucleotides (polymerized nucleic acids) in our DNA is translated via the genetic code into amino acid sequences in protein. The way that sentence reads, you seem to be implying that DNA is a sequence of amino acids, which it’s not (directly).
March 26th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Nice job on improving that analogy. Alternatively you could say: The more people attending to the party, the less cake for each one.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I would take all claims of detecting large molecules like this with a grain of salt. While 51 transitions sounds impressive, if you look at the actual paper most of them are blends or bumps on the side of a stronger line. Also, this source (SgrB2) is notorious for having baseline problems (which even the authors mention). This means it’s exceedingly hard to tell whether something is just a background ripple or an actual molecular transition line.
For a good discussion on why glycine hasn’t been found in space yet, including many of the above concerns, see Lew Snyder’s paper in The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 619, p. 914 (2005).
March 26th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Viggen, I changed the way I phrased that. Thanks!
March 26th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think there’s a bit more to add to Dr. Chandra’s very useful comment. Glycine may be hard to identify unambiguously (even if there are no background problems with the source), because its spectroscopic signature will contain components that are similar to what one might see in a mixture of aminomethane and acetic acid. In other words, apart from C-H bonds, all glycine has is a primary amine and a carboxylic acid group.
Amino acetonitrile, OTOH, has a nitrile group that may conjugate with the amino group, and hence be observationally distinct from other (simpler) nitrile compounds.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
The BA said:
“Amino acids are the building blocks of life, as biologists are fond of saying; they are the basis of proteins and [struck out bit] our DNA is coded to make them”
Eh? Are you saying our DNA is coded to make amino acids?
BTW, I have a minor quibble with the piccie – it does not distinguish the CN triple bond of the nitrile from the CN single bond of the amino group. These are different both physically (e.g. the bonds are different lengths) and chemically (the nitrile group is quite reactive, which is, in part, what makes nitrile compounds toxic. An older name for the nitrile group is cyanide).
March 26th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Thanks, Nigel… that was helpful!
March 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for the reference Dr. Chandra. Is there a arXiv or other preprint reference to Lew Snyder’s ApJ. paper? Unfortunately, being retired I do not have institutional access to that journal.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:23 am
[...] Found on the Bad Astronomy blog [...]
March 27th, 2008 at 1:48 am
SkepticTim:
The full paper is available at the ADS.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:14 am
“cute bugger”? Is that a common phrase in America?! In the UK it’s bordering on NSFW
March 27th, 2008 at 8:12 am
[...] An organic farm in the galactic center Ooh, maybe we're close to finding an actual amino acid. [...]
March 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Thats pretty spiffy, but I don’t think it will have an biological implications. If we were to find precursurs to DNA or RNA, then I would be impressed. DNA->RNA->Polypeptides of course.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Christopher:
Thanks; I got it!
March 28th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Celtic Evolution said:
“Thanks, Nigel… that was helpful!”
My pleasure.
March 28th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Mike Torr said:
““cute bugger”? Is that a common phrase in America?! In the UK it’s bordering on NSFW ”
Unless one works in a microbiology lab, in which working with bugs is sometimes affectionately known as “buggery”.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’m always into discussions on anything organic, so this read made me feel at home.
I’ll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!