"The difficulty in searching for complex molecules is that the best astronomical sources contain so many different molecules that their "fingerprints" overlap, and are difficult to disentangle" says Arnaud Belloche, scientist at the Max Planck institute and first author of the research paper. "Larger molecules are even more difficult to identify because their "fingerprints" are barely visible: their radiation is distributed over many more lines that are much weaker" adds Holger Mueller, researcher at the University of Cologne. Out of 3700 spectral lines detected with the IRAM telescope, the team identified 36 lines belonging to the two new molecules.

The researchers then used a computational model to understand the chemical processes that allow these and other molecules to form in space. Chemical reactions can take place as the result of collisions between gaseous particles; but there are also small grains of dust suspended in the interstellar gas, and these grains can be used as landing sites for atoms to meet and react, producing molecules. As a result, the grains build up thick layers of ice, composed mainly of water, but also containing a number of basic organic molecules like methanol, the simplest alcohol.

"But," says Robin Garrod, a researcher in astrochemistry at Cornell University, "the really large molecules don’t seem to build up this way, atom by atom." Rather, the computational models suggest that the more complex molecules form section by section, using pre-formed building blocks that are provided by molecules, such as methanol, that are already present on the dust grains. The computational models show that these sections, or "functional groups", can add together efficiently, building up a molecular "chain" in a series of short steps. The two newly-discovered molecules seem to be produced in this way.

Adds Garrod, "There is no apparent limit to the size of molecules that can be formed by this process -- so there’s good reason to expect even more complex organic molecules to be there, if we can detect them."

Senior MPIfR team member Karl Menten thinks that this will happen in the near future: "What we are doing now is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Future instruments like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array will allow much more efficient studies to discover organic interstellar molecules." These may even include amino acids, which are required for the production of proteins, and are therefore essential to life on Earth.

The simplest amino acid, glycine (NH2CH2COOH), has been looked for in the past, but has not been successfully detected. However, the size and complexity of this molecule is matched by the two new molecules discovered by the team (Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press).

Original Paper:

"Increased complexity in interstellar chemistry: detection and chemical modeling of ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide in Sgr B2(N)" by A. Belloche, R. T. Garrod, H. S. P. Mueller, K. M. Menten, C. Comito, and P. Schilke, Astronomy & Astrophysics (in press), [DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/200811550]

Further Information: European Week of Astronomy and Space Science, Hertfordshire, UK, April 20-23, 2009.

Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), Bonn, Germany.

Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy

Reference list of all 150 molecules presently known in space: http://www.astro.uni-koeln.de/cdms/molecules.

Cornell University, Ithaca, USA.

Institut fuer Radioastronomie im Millimeterbereich (IRAM), Grenoble, France.

Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), Chile.

Science Contacts:
Dr. Arnaud Belloche
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany
Tel.: +49 228 525-376
Fax: +49 228 525-435
E-mail: belloche@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

Dr. Robin Garrod
Dept. of Astronomy, Cornell University, USA
Tel.: +1 607 255 8967
Fax: +1 607 255 5875
E-mail: rgarrod@astro.cornell.edu

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