Astronomers Find Largest Molecules Ever Known in Space

[yevaud]

Astronomers Find Largest Molecules Ever Known in Space

Astronomers have found evidence of buckyballs - carbon molecules shaped like soccer balls - in the nebula around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery marks the largest molecules known to exist in space.

Normally found in chemistry labs, where they are made by vaporizing graphite in the presence of helium, buckyballs were long suspected to form inside stars.

"As soon as they were discovered in the lab it was actually suggested they would be very good candidates to be found in space," astronomer Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, who led the new study, told SPACE.com.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/b ... 00722.html

 

[bdewoody]

This begs a question. Probably better placed in the SETI forum. Are there molecules that can be detected in far off space that could only have been made artificially by an intelligent species? Maybe looking for such molecules would be a better way of looking for our neighbors.

 

[SteveCNC]

good question , perhaps signatures of molecules we don't recognize could see the rise of new materials as yet discovered .

 

[EarthlingX]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q47nuOI0vU[/youtube]

 

[gypstar]

Wut a cute name. ^^