Scientists discover two new interstellar molecules

 A team of scientists using the National Science Foundation's
 (NSF) Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) has
 discovered two new molecules in an interstellar cloud near the
 center of the Milky Way Galaxy. This discovery is the GBT's first
 detection of new molecules, and is already helping astronomers
 better understand the complex processes by which large molecules
 form in space. 

 The 8-atom molecule propenal and the 10-atom molecule
 propanal were detected in a large cloud of gas and dust some
 26,000 light-years away in an area known as Sagittarius B2. Such
 clouds, often many light-years across, are the raw material from
 which new stars are formed. 

 "Though very rarefied by Earth standards, these interstellar clouds
 are the sites of complex chemical reactions that occur over
 hundreds-of-thousands or millions of years," said Jan M. Hollis of
 the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Over time,
 more and more complex molecules can be formed in these clouds."

 "At present, however, there is no accepted theory addressing how
 interstellar molecules containing more than 5 atoms are formed." 

 So far, about 130 different molecules have been discovered in
 interstellar clouds. Most of these molecules contain a small number
 of atoms, and only a few molecules with eight or more atoms have
 been found in interstellar clouds.

 Complex molecules in space are of interest for many reasons,
 including their possible connection to the formation of biologically
 significant molecules on the early Earth. Complex molecules might
 have formed on the early Earth, or they might have first formed in
 interstellar clouds and been transported to the surface of the Earth.

 NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY NEWS RELEASE
 Posted: June 27, 2004
 http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0406/27molecules/

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