Cold Sugar Cloud Found in Space

Roland Piquepaille writes "A cloud filled with simple molecules of sugar has been found 26,000 light-years away from us, near the middle of our galaxy. The 8-atom sugar molecules exist in a gas cloud named Sagittarius B2 at a temperature of only 8 degrees above absolute zero. Too far and too cold to bake your next cake! However, even if chemistry reactions on Earth and in this frigid sugar cloud are very different, astronomers think this discovery "suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space." Please read the original article for more details or just enjoy these illustrations describing how prebiotic chemistry -- the formation of the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life -- occurs in interstellar clouds."

Comments

Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, somebody had to say it!

Re:Sweet!

[vijaya_chandra]

We can atleast say that the results would be sweet for all the billions we are spending on space research

Slightly Better Graphics Page

[infernow]

here

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's more bad news for low-carb dieters.

Re:Well

[chromaphobic]

Coming Soon: New Atkins-Friendly intersellar gas clouds!

What if formed on a planet first?

[mind21_98]

What if the sugar molecules were formed on a planet first, and then swept up into space by a large asteroid or something? That seems very unlikely, but it's a possible scenario.

Re:What if formed on a planet first?

[Anonymous Coward]

With what a broom?

That seems incredibly unlikely, as whatever force could "sweep" the sugar molecules off the plant would probably destroy them. Unless of course the plant was a giant donut (glazed of course). Mmmm. Donut.

Re:What if formed on a planet first?

[fifedrum]

how do you think they got the hole in the planet/donut?

Food mining in Space!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Now just wait- one day clouds like this one will be the primary food source (with processing of course) of many a "Starbase". If you've got a base set up nearby, should be no problem to mine this cloud for food & oxygen.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[rjh]

The fact you got modded up to +3 goes to show just how few Slashdotters know much about astrophysics. This proposal is completely infeasible.

Take a cylinder a meter wide, from here to Alpha Centauri. Tally up how much matter is there inside of it. I would tell you just how little there is, but you wouldn't believe me, so let's go through the math so you know I'm not yanking your chain. On average, there's about one atom per cubic centimeter of space. Thus, in one cubic meter there's about 10^6 atoms.

One mole of hydrogen, with a mass of one gram, is 6.023 * 10^23 atoms.

One cubic meter of interstellar space has a mass of 1.6 * 10^-18 grams, or 1.6 * 10^-21 kilograms.

It's about four lightyears to Alpha Centauri, or 4 * 10^16 meters, approximately. So a cylinder a meter across would have a cross-section of quarter-pi square meters, or about .785m^2. Multiply that by 4 * 10^16 meters and you get a total volume of roughly 3 * 10^16 cubic meters.

Multiply 3 * 10^16 cubic meters by 1.6 * 10^-21 kilograms per cubic meter and what do you get?

You get the total mass of all the matter in a cylinder from here to Alpha Centauri. Something on the order of a fraction of a gram. You leave orders of magnitude more matter in a Kleenex when you sneeze.

You may want to radically rethink your proposal for farming interstellar gas. There just ain't much of it out there.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[harrkev]

Well, you said "On average." In a nebula, isn't the average density of gas a *LOT* higher?

I am not an expert on this, but nebulas can be readily seen, so their density should be orders of magnitude more.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[rjh]

Fine; assume two orders of magnitude more. (That's a huge, huge amount, by the by.) You're still talking about only a gram of matter in a cylinder from here to Alpha Centauri.

Think about this one for a moment: these nebulae are light-years across, and yet, despite there being light-years of matter there, we can still see stars on the other side.

Outer space is a vacuum. It's very, very close to a perfect vacuum. Even the places which are relatively jam-packed with stuff are very close to a perfect vacuum.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[Charvak]

The density of the coal sack nebulae is around 100-300 molecules per cm*cm. Hence, his arguments are still valid.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[harrkev]

You mean that all those pretty pictures of nebulae on Star Trek lied??

Damn you, Rick Berman! How could you.

My faith in sci-fi is now shattered.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ah, but by the time we can go 36 light years, do you really think we won't have table-top nanofactories? Any organic or pre-organic molecule has the right elements to turn into food- it's just a matter of rearranging them properly.

Re:Food mining in Space!

[Yet Another Smith]

First, let me state that a massive (relatively) object such as a comet or methany-type moon would be a better source for raw materials than a dispersed cloud. Asimov's old story "The Martian Way" (IIRC) illustrates the value of such a concentrated source of H2 and O2. So you're right that mining clouds is probably economically unfeasible.

That said, there are a lot more questions you can ask before dismissing this out-of-hand.

A quick web search indicates that some nebulae are about 4 orders of magnitude denser than average interstellar space, so you're closer to 0.1 kg

A magnetic funnel might sweep out 2 square km of space at 50% efficiency (effective cross section 1 square km) yeilding 100,000 kg of material. Mostly this will be CHON and helium, with some iron and other heavier elements.

If you happened to find such a cloud with a slow-moving massive object that might gravitationally concentrate the material you could do even better.

This doesn't even rise to the level of back-of-a-napkin physics, but its enough to defend the modding up of a lay person's at a non-technical site such as this. If this were on a more technical website (just being news for nerds and having a bunch of techies hanging around doesn't make it a technical site) this might be worthwhile criticism. Besides if it hadn't been modded up, you wouldn't have been able to make the very valid point that these things are likely far too dispersed to be valuable, which is a useful factoid. The modders did you a favor! :P

Good science or showboating quote?

[Jerf]

Is "suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space." good science, or a showboating quote?

I ask because last I checked, "sugar" is hardly a "building block" of life. Proteins, sure, even amino acids which I think are a bit of a stretch in a way, but mere sugar? Sugar builds nothing and is only slightly more complicated than water, compared to even a simple protein, AFAICS.

Re:Good science or showboating quote?

[kalidasa]

This sugar (glycoaldehyde) + a 3 carbon sugar = ribose = a building block of deoxyribonucleic acid. See the original link

Re:Good science or showboating quote?

[Deliveranc3]

Forgive my ignorance but isn't sugar only produced by life?

I remember reading that the only inorganic molecule which humans can eat (not drink) is NaCl?

Re:Good science or showboating quote?

[aminorex]

I drink water fairly well, and that's carbon-free.

Re:Good science or showboating quote?

[harrkev]

I believe that KCl is popular for people on low-Na diets.

Re:Good science or showboating quote?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Multiple meanings of the word "organic." In the chemical sense, a compound is organic if it is composed largely of carbon and hydrogen. The simplest organic compounds (hydrocarbons) contain only carbon and hydrogen. More complex ones are formed by, effectively, removing one or more of the hydrogen atoms and attaching something else ("something else" can of course be very complex in this case.) There are lots and lots of organic compounds, including many sugars, out there which have origins which are not "organic" in the sense you're thinking of.

Homer would say....

[aelbric]

Mmmmmmmmm.....interstellar doughnuts.....

first you get teh sugar

[user317]

first you get the sugar
then you get the power
then you get the women.

Immanuel Velikovsky

[notjonny]

This reminds me of Immanuel Velikovsky's theory of manna being some sort of cloud of sugar or something falling to earth during one of the interplanetary collisions that he describes. Its been a long time since I have read his books so I can't remember the specifics.

Re:Immanuel Velikovsky

[Mekabyte]

Except it wasn't really like that at all... the theory was precipitated hydrocarbons, which would collect on everything like dew. Even though one of his books was titled Worlds in Collision, he wasn't talking about a physical collision, it was just close fly-bys. While many of his theories may seem unbelievable, other ones like his theory of interplanetary lightning were proven (lightning between Jupiter and Io) relatively recently even though most scientists had originally said such phenomena was impossible.

Re:Immanuel Velikovsky

[fluffy666]

Except it wasn't really like that at all... the theory was precipitated hydrocarbons, which would collect on everything like dew.

Actually, he was unclear on this point. For whatever it was to be edible, it would have to be carbohydrates. It appears that Velikovsky didn't understand the difference.

it was just close fly-bys

Which would have been so much more convincing if he had backed it up with an understanding of orbital mechanics.

While many of his theories may seem unbelievable

In his case, 'wild guesses' seems more appropriate. The interesting thing is the extent to which his supporters will shoehorn any astronomical discovery into whatever he said.

other ones like his theory of interplanetary lightning were proven (lightning between Jupiter and Io)

This is a classic example. The flux tube between Jupiter and IO is nothing like 'lightening' and certainly does not have the effect of gouging out great canyons or whatever. Such a phenomina was never declared impossable as far as I know.

Re:Immanuel Velikovsky

[notjonny]

I believe that sugar is a carbohydrate and therefore a hydrocarbon? IANAC (I am not a chemist). Anyway, Velikovsky's writings were always entertaining, if not exactly verifiable science. Kind of like the "Just So Stories" of Kipling. "How the moon got its spots"?

Re:Immanuel Velikovsky

[fluffy666]

I believe that sugar is a carbohydrate and therefore a hydrocarbon?

No, a Carbohydrate has the generic formula CnH2nOn, wheras a hydrocarbon has the generic formula CnH2n. Furthermore, the conversion between the two is chemically quite challenging.

Anyway, Velikovsky's writings were always entertaining, if not exactly verifiable science.

This is true.. it's just that some people seem to treat them as non-fiction..

Re:Immanuel Velikovsky

[notjonny]

Thanks for the clarification on hydrocarbons.

I have always thought there ought to be a category for books like Velikovsky's. SciFi has been refered to as "Speculative Fiction" by Harlan Ellison. Books like Velikovsky's should get a label like "Speculative Non-Fiction". Yes, I know that doesn't make logical sense, but then again look at what it refers to. Maybe "Just So" story is better? Daniel Dennet used Just So story to describe the Aquatic Ape Theory which he thought might actually have some merit and needed further study. Though all this is academic since it is unlikely any of the authors would use these labels....

That's because it's a Roland Piquepaille article.

[Ayanami Rei]

Most people agree Roland "Fuckeyfacey" Piquepaille's Technology Trends is a bullshit website.

Yet we keep seeing it linked from Slashdot.

I wouldn't mind if someone stole the content of Roland's article, removed the bullshit, added some more informative links, and then pretended to have stumbled across whatever it was, and posted it to Slashdot.

But I wish they would stop accepting submissions from him. He is just shitting all over slashdot for referral ad money.

(ed) "Most people agree Roland ..."

[Ayanami Rei]

Should have been a link:
Most people agree Roland "Fuckeyfacey" Piquepaille...

In other news...

[kcorporation]

a low-calorie version of the cloud has been found in another region of space, but exploration is out of the question because of the high aspartame content.

Hmmm

[FLAGGR]

*sigh* its Roland Piquepaille again, blog whore extrodinaire. Don't visit the link to his blog, it's not worth it, he'sjust trying to generate traffic because he can't get enough himself (guess his opinions aren't interesting enough)

How did they detect this?

[berck]

The article is awfulyl skimpy. How do you use a telescope to determine the MOLECULAR structure of an interstellar cloud??? I'm not doubting it can be done, but I'd really like to know how.

Re:How did they detect this?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you use a telescope to determine the MOLECULAR structure of an interstellar cloud???

Same way you determine the molecular structure of a compound sitting on the lab bench. Molecular structure is usually detemined by spectroscopy - looking at the electromagnetic radiation the compound absorbs/emits. (What - you thought we used a BIG microscope?) They probably looked at the spectrum of the cloud, and saw charachteristic wavelengths missing and/or present, and concluded that it was due to the presence of the "sugar" molecule.

BTW: The "sugar" molecule they found is glycolaldehyde. While technically a sugar from a chemist's point of view [it obeys the C(n)H(2n)O(n) rule - here n=2], it would hardly be considered a sugar from a biochemist's or nutritionist's one. It's only a two carbon molecule, and isn't even on any of the normal metabolism paths. Although there probably is a bacteria that can digest it (bacteria can digest practically anything) this "sugar" would probably be non-nutrative - if anything it would give you gas.

Oh ... and in case anyone is wondering, yes, I *am* a biochemist.

Re:How did they detect this?

[Dachannien]

As the article mentions, the detection of glycolaldehyde is of interest because it is a precursor to ribose. We're not talking about metabolic processes here - we're talking about the availability of the very basic chemicals that formed the first nontrivially self-replicating collections of molecules.

Glycolaldehyde is also of interest because it is involved in an autocatalytic reaction that essentially converts formaldehyde into glycolaldehyde. As such, it is one of the most fundamental examples of self-replicating molecules. Certainly not nearly as complex as those seen in biology (prions, for example), but the fact that this reaction might take place in the depths of space is interesting - particularly when one considers the possibility of a glycolaldehyde/formaldehyde cloud entering the atmosphere of a planet such as Earth, where conditions are likely much better to sustain the autocatalytic reaction.

Mirror of Roland the spammer's "article"

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: Images are hosted through nyud.net to avoid funding spam

Cold Sugar Cloud Lost in Space

A cloud filled with simple molecules of sugar has been found 26,000 light-years away from us, near the middle of our Milky Way Galaxy. The 8-atom sugar molecules exist in a gas cloud named Sagittarius B2 at a temperature of only 8 degrees above absolute zero. Too far and too cold to bake your next cake! However, even if chemistry reactions on Earth and in this frigid sugar cloud are very different, astronomers think this "discovery suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space." I'm not qualified to say if their claims are funded, but don't hesitate to tell me if they're right or wrong.

Please read the original article for more astronomical details or just enjoy the illustrations below describing how prebiotic chemistry -- the formation of the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life -- occurs in interstellar clouds.

[IMAGE] This illustration shows how processes may produce complex molecules in cold interstellar space. (Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF) [IMAGE] And this one shows that prebiotic chemistry -- the formation of the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life -- occurs in interstellar clouds long before that cloud collapses to form a new solar system with planets. (Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

The above acronyms in the credits for the illustrations refer respectively to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , the Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) .

Sources: SpaceRef.com, September 20, 2004; and various websites

Is this what they call "Icing sugar"?

[Spudley]

Too far and too cold to bake your next cake!

I'm sure it would be usable as frosting... :-D

My girlfriend asks a very pertinent question...

[HaloZero]

...espicially for a geek community.

Has anyone found any creamer, yet?

Re:My girlfriend asks a very pertinent question...

[ebrandsberg]

Yes, it's in the Milky Way.

Must be a Sinistar

[eamonman]

If you played Sinistar, you know that all planetoids contain little sugar crystals. Some are especially sweet (the tiny, slightly non-spherical ones). So whenever we humans invent warping, we must remember not go over there, otherwise our ships will be devoured like all those little sweet sugar crystals.

Another spam posting.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Our friend Roland must do nothing but sit around all day submitting articles on slashdot. I've never seen less than 1 per day, and I rarely read section stories. Amazing how he never forgets that link to his own spammy blog, isn't it?

I mean, goddamn. I expect ads, so editors, if he's paying for it, by all means put it up here. Just don't try to sneak it past us as a quasi-article, ok? With as many duplicate submissions as you guys must get, it's just impossible that it's not a covert ad.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though. Just do us all a favor, and put him in a killfile. Let him post comments, I don't care... but the article submission is starting to grate on my nerves. Tell you what, do it, and I'll subscribe. I'm sure others will too.

Re:Another spam posting.

[YGingras]

What we need is some form of meta-moderation for the accepted submissions.

Re:Another spam posting.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Well, at least we agree it's a problem. Don't know that moderation can fix it, or we'd have too many ijits voting Roland's story in.

Re:Another spam posting.

[YGingras]

If moderation of submissions works like for the moderation of comments, the newest say 5% of users can't moderate and only people with positive karma receive mod points so we rule out the possibility that someone creates a gigazillions accounts just to moderate his own submissions.

A scheme where the editor aprove a post and then the post must receive say 5 mod points might delay the flow too much but if each submission stay a few hours in the moderation bin it has a chance to be marked "-1 spam" before an editor checks it, saving the editor some work and saving us a lotsa spam.

: )

Re:Another spam posting.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Heh. What would the -1s be?

-1, Duplicate.
-1, JonKatz
-1, Spam

Have they found...

[BottleCup]

the Alien Ant collony that lives nearby yet?

Re:Have they found...

[ALeavitt]

Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over -- "conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here.
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Space trucker loses load...

[atgrim]

...This just. Intergalactic highway r-405-g, was brought to an atomic halt when a space trucker from Andromeda's Pure Cane Sugar (IG Stk: APCS) planet blew an airlock and 40million cubic meters of the sweet stuff was left over 38 light years. APCS has denied any wrong doing but said that clean efforts would begin immeadiately. The trucker in question was later found at the Orion Unemployment Office, Nebulous Division. When asked for comment, he stated "I don't know what happened! One minute I was cruisen at 30 parsecs the next thing kablooie!! Everything went nova! I think the IGPF [Intergalactic Police Force] said something about triffles or truffles or something like that." We will have further updates as they become available. In other news...

Re:first you get teh sugar

[thegrassyknowl]

So that's where all the bees went!@!@!

chewy

[Garble Snarky]

a giant cloud of sugar in the middle of our galaxy, eh?

so if a supernova happened upon this cloud...might the milky way end up with a giant caramel center?

I, for one

[nnnneedles]

I for one, welcome our new sugar-based lifeform overlords.

I'd like to remind them that as a trusted slahsdot personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground ant caves.

Good science or hype?

[waterbear]

This sugar (glycoaldehyde) + a 3 carbon sugar = ribose = a building block of deoxyribonucleic acid.

I think this is astronomers' chemistry, not biochemistry. For one thing, ribose is a 'building block' of RNA, not DNA. For another, the supposed addition reaction (does it take place in space? not in living organisms I think) calls for a larger 2nd starting material (containing 12 atoms per molecule). This is significantly more complex than the 8-atom glycolaldehyde that has reportedly been found already. Its occurrence in space has yet to be reported on. The reference to DNA is hype, I think.

-wb-

8 Degrees...

[AmiMoJo]

... centigrade, farenheit, kelvin? Guess I should RTFA, but it's nice to have these little details in the summary for those (like me) who don't care enough about giant space sugar clouds to actually do that.

Re:8 Degrees...

[bhima]

actually it's 8 Degrees of seperation ;)

Krispy Kreme to launch

[Anonymous Coward]

On a related note, representatives for Krispy Kreme are planning a stock split to finance an interstellar mission to retreive this bonanza of free ingredients.

"Its just a damn shame it so far away" said Frank Jitters, spokesman for Krispy Kreme "even then, we are absolutely committed to the mission. We have spoken with NASA, JPL, EPA, BS, and other authorities and we all agree that a rocket powered by the bullshit created on Roland Piquepailles weblog will give us sufficient power to achieve our goals".

Representatives from Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons were unavailable for comment.

Re:Krispy Kreme to launch

[dashersey]

Wouldn't that be a "Bonanza Split" ??? Sorry.... mod me out if you need to.

8 Degrees above absolute zero...

[CaptainPinko]

It says "at a temperature of only 8 degrees above absolute zero ". Neither Fahrenheit nor Celsius are based around absolute zero therefore it's easy to understand the implied Kelvin. Low temperatures are exclusively given in the Kelvin AFAIK. Really there shouldn't be any confusion.

I think there is a temperture scale based on absolute zero but like Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, but I don't think I can recall the name and have never seen it used. Really, science is the domain of the metric system.

Re:8 Degrees above absolute zero...

[WhiplashII]

The Rankine temperature scale starts at absolute zero and uses degrees Fahrenheit. But as far as I know, no one uses it.

I seem to remember seeing it in an old rocket engine design manual, talking about propellant boiling points. Weird stuff is in those old manuals!

Re:8 Degrees above absolute zero...

[Croatian Sensation]

I hate to be a nitpicker, but if it's "only 8 degrees above absolute zero" that precludes the measurement from being Kelvin. There is no such thing as a "degree Kelvin". It is simply a "Kelvin".

It's somewhat convenient that one degree Celsius and a Kelvin are the same.

Either way, 8 degrees of anything above absolute zero is pretty darned cold and for most folks it doesn't make a bloody lick of difference what units you use.

Check this page out for more information.

Mmmmmmm.

[jetsfandb]

Cold Sugar Clouds.
Arrhrhrhrrhrhrhrhrhrhr.

Could this support Homer Simpon's theory of a donut shaped universe by introducing the possibility that the universe IS just a giant doughnut (The clouds could be sprinkles?).

Much more interesting

[julesh]

Personally, I found the discovery of alcohol in space clouds a lot more interesting.

Sugar? Boring.

Hobos rejoice!

[peacefinder]

At last, the Big Rock Candy Mountain has been found!

Now, how do they find a boxcar headed that way?