Detecting 'alcohol'... floating in the universe: Relating to our birth

Science Alert funny: Those are not bottles of wine thrown away by careless astronauts. Those are just "brothers" to the alcohol molecule on Earth, microscopic, but what has just been identified is the largest alcohol molecular structure of all.

"Star Nursery" Sagittarius B2

The alcohol molecules that have just been identified are in the form of propanol, including normal-propanol first detected in the star-forming region and iso-propanol (the main ingredient in hand sanitizers) that has never been identified even in this study. any form of interstellar space.

According to a research team led by Dr. Rob Garrod from the University of Virginia - USA, two newly discovered molecular forms will shed light on how celestial bodies such as comets and stars are formed.

Although on Earth alcohol is associated with gatherings and drunkenness, these "alien relatives" are symbols of life.

They are found in a "birth room" of stars, the massive star-forming region known as Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2).This region is located near the center of the Milky Way and near Sagittarius A* ( Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole that our galaxy is built around.

This discovery is the result of 15 years of observations by ALMA, a super telescope located in Chile.

ALMA offers higher resolution and a high level of sensitivity, allowing researchers to identify molecules that were previously invisible. It is possible to isolate the specific frequency of radiation emitted by each molecule in a busy part of space such as Sgr B2.

Physicist Holger Müller from the University of Cologne in Germany, who is part of the research team, said: "In a source like Sgr B2, there are so many molecules that contribute to the observed radiation that their spectra overlap. each other and it is difficult to classify their traces and identify them individually".

But thanks to a lot of effort, they made it.

The team will continue to explore more interstellar molecules in Sgr B2, and understand the mechanism that leads to star formation, which is certainly related to "cosmic alcohol". As an organic compound, propanol is also suspected to participate in the formation of planets, possibly even more or less related to life.

The study was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.