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Giant Cloud of Methanol Found in Space
kakos writes "Astronomers have recently discovered a giant cloud of methanol in our region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The cloud measures 463 billion kilometres across. Study of this cloud could lead scientists to a greater understanding of how star formation occurs. Furthermore, the abundance of organic molecules in interstellar space could also shed light on the chemical origins of life."
Finally, a solution for our post-peak oil problems! Now, all we need to do is make a solar powered spaceship and pack a really long siphoning hose...
as "great tasting", with "less tar".
Oh wait, you said Methanol...well, we can still get totally wasted off of that, broseph!
/Frat Aliens
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
You know things are starting to slip when it has to be explicitly pointed out in an article about an astronomic discovery that you can't drink the thing.
Other than jokingly, I wonder how many people thought "Cool, space booze!"?
Remember kids, looking at it in a telescope is fine, but drink it and you'll go blind. Instead of imbibing galactic moonshine, buy your alcohol only from a legitimate manufacturer.
This is old news.
Smeghead every day of the week.
This reminds me of the pool of ethanol I swim in in my dreams.
Property is theft.
Time for a regime change in space, let's liberate aliens and bring them democracy.
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
"There's Coffee in that Nebula"
you know, If we could muster enough methane, the right catalyst, and a gallon of vermouth we could have a martini almost half a light-year across.......
And who says there's no God...
== That terrible green-green grass, and violent blooms of flower dresses, and afternoons that make me sleepy.==
Maybe the desnity is indicated somewhere in the article... should I read the article? This is Slashdot, no way!
You just got troll'd!
Considering Helium is the byproduct of a nuclear Hydrogen reaction in stars, I'd say its VERY important regarding possible origins or histories of life long past.
...that on every article about space exploration, there's always a sentence attached, which reads something like "[this discovery] could lead scientists to a greater understanding of X" (where X is usually Life, Universe, or Everything)
It's kind of starting to get on my nerves.. oh well..
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
Considering how tough it is to find organic molecules at all - whether organic by courtesy or not - finding a vast cloud of methanol is extraordinary. While finding methanol on earth would at best be vaguely interesting, since in the lifetime of the earth we've managed to significantly bypass the stage of small molecules, remember that if you've got 463 billion km of methanol there's a fair chance that something did it. Whether it's vapour trails from a cosmic express or some strange unforeseen product from the explosion of a star with just the right mass balance to get this kind of ratio of atoms to form the products, it's hugely interesting to find it up there.
The chances of two random atoms interacting is middling to fair. Biatoms will readily form molecules, especially since the simplest atom is hydrogen which will happily pair up with another of itself. The chances of two different molecules interacting closely enough to react is very low. On earth we need dense solutions with a heat source to get a reaction to happen. The chances of interaction to produce a cloud of particles is very low, though with the amount of stuff out there you can understand how it happens. The chance of getting reaction of enough molecules in one way to produce enough of one kind of product to show up on a spectrometer is fantastically small. Note that the article doesn't say "methane and methanol", which would be more expected from reaction with carbon in a hydrogen-rich environment; and if you mix oxygen and methane together in an attempt to get methanol, you'll get the lower-energy products of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
...is that the cloud isn't made of just methanol. It just has enough methanol to be detectable from its radio emissions. Most of this cloud (which has been known for a long time) is made up of hydrogen and helium, just like most of the universe.
Wake me up when they find some ethanol. :\
Wow, that's the hugest fart in the entire .. sorry, I thought you said methANE.
Sorry. Forget I said that. Sorry
"Cats like plain crisps"
Can't say that I agree. In the first place, about forty of the 130 or so known interstellar molecules are as big or bigger than methanol. In the second place, methanol is readily formed in a reducing environment, such as you'd find in hydrogen-rich interstellar space. Third, while it is true that the formation reaction rate would be low, because as you point out the interstellar gas density is low, it is equally true that it's got billions of years to react. Remember how easily Stanley Miller got amino acids to form in a primordial soup with a little electrical discharge? Frankly, I'd be shocked if simple organics didn't form in a reducing, cryogenic environment with plenty of high-energy photons swimming about.
On earth we need dense solutions with a heat source to get a reaction to happen.
Not always, no. Plenty of reactions will go without heat, and in dilute solution.
if you mix oxygen and methane together in an attempt to get methanol, you'll get the lower-energy products of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water.
To be sure. But that is a highly oxidizing environment, and hydrogen-rich interstellar space is a highly reducing environment. Surely most oxygen in a hydrogen-rich molecular cloud is going to be present as H2O, not O2, and then
CH3 + H2O -> CH3OH + 1/2 H2
would happens readily enough in a highly energetic environment. Interstellar space is an unusual chemical environment from the point of view of Earthlings, used as we are to living at the bottom of a pool of potent oxidizer. It's highly nonthermal and highly reducing. Our Earth-based chemistry instincts may not necessarily be a good guide.