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Naphthalene Found In Outer Space
Adam Korbitz writes with an excerpt from his blog on an exciting discovery in space: "A team of researchers led by Spanish scientists has published their discovery of the complex molecule naphthalene in an interstellar star-forming cloud, indicating many prebiotic organic molecules necessary for life as we know it could have been present when our own solar system formed. According to the new research — published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters — the naphthalene molecules were discovered 700 light-years from Earth in a star-forming region of the constellation Perseus, in the direction of the star Cernis 52."
Naphtalene--or better known as the primary ingredient in MOTHBALLS
At last. We know the secret coordinates of Mothra. (S)he lies in the constellation Perseus. This may lead us to discover the origins of Godzilla.
My girlfriend brought over brownies...
How exactly does one detect specific molecules, 700 light years away?
which was changed during editing, but further reinforces the prescience of Mr. Clarke.
I always wondered why there were no moths in outer space. This explains everything!
Great! That means our spacesuits will always be free from molds.
That's just Chinese milk processors' excuse for Naphthalene in the milk.
Table-ized A.I.
Literally "the origin of life is everywhere," panspermia theory posits that the seeds life exist all over the universe. A related but separate theory called "exogenesis" posits that life began somewhere other than Earth and was delivered here.
We've observed vast clouds of organic material far larger than our galaxy in the reaches of space. Now we've discovered prebiotic chemicals there. It's not that much of a stretch to guess that life-as-we-know-it is not uncommon. Intelligence (such as it is?) may be less common. Given the vastness of space and time it's not unreasonable to hope that we're not alone.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Time to invade
At first I thought it said Neanderthal.
This would be so much cooler then Naphtalene.
My first thought was something along these lines.
Exactly how did he get out there?
I suspected it was a crude version of this... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002387.html
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
so some idiot doesn't know moths can't survive in space
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Space has been mathballed?
napthalene is a simple aromatic hydrocarbon, basically one benzene ring fused with another. molecular formula C10H8. hydrocarbons can be cracked under certain conditions to produce various aromatic hydrocarbons so finding it in space could be fairly common if there are hydrocarbons near a source capable of cracking them.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Moths don't actually have balls! And they can't survive in vacuum!
This must be a mistake.
This article deserves a "mothballs" tag. :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
For those not familiar with the field of abiogenesis, it is a truly remarkable field of study. The search for the first origin of life on our planet, or rather when organic matter achieved 'life' as we understand it.
I find it quite interesting personally, how the primordial sludge brewed into our very first ancestor.
Excelsior!!
I am open source, and Linux baby!
moths don't have balls?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Napthalene is a conjugated benzene ring compound. This then somewhat shows that complex ring compounds can be made in space. If these, then, can be made, then the jump to the DNA bases, and amino acid bases is not too far away.
..........FULL STOP.
termites.
Serenity now, insanity later.
submit a story... yawn.....
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
When a electron leaves an excited state it emits a photon. Every element and molecule has a unique set of frequencies for these transfers. So by looking at the light coming off of it, you can figure out whats in it. Its called spectroscopy. If in high school chemistry you ever burned chemicals and used a cardboard thing over your eye to see lines, you've got the basic idea.
And that shows why there aren't any moths in space.
If you don't know the difference between microbes and molecules, you should probably go read some science books.
Pandora.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
While the production of naphthalene is rare, I doubt it is unique. They are only looking 700 light years out.
You figure that there's some set mixing, temperature and pressure that coupled with the right raw materials, kicks out different kinds of organic chemicals. Park the right cloud of raw good next to the right kind of star and in the right kind of gravity area, and, it seems reasonable that all sorts of organics might be found eventually all over the universe.
For all we know, our solar system just whipped right through a cloud of stellar cooked organics, and we practically just have life rained down on our little world.
This is my sig.
This just proofs that Eega Beeva is out there, somewhere...
Second response
Perhaps you're right. "To hope" ignores that you should be careful what you wish for.
Maybe "To expect" is a better term.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm relieved to know that even in deep space, I'll find fuel for my Zippo.
The same observatory reported the same thing 15 years ago: www.iac.es/folleto/research/preprints/files/PP08019.pdf
"And we're going to KEEP discovering it until you get it right!"
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Newer technologies in telescopes determined that the Mote in God's Eye is in fact the Moth in God's Eye,
All the naphthalene out there are there because God's will, to see if can get rid of that pest.
I knew I smelled something...
Zoid.com
When a electron leaves an excited state it emits a photon.
Thus explaining the origin of photon-crusted socks in the hamper.
That's pretty far from here, no probes, nothing, so, how can they be so sure that it is naphathalene to begin with? That's a lot of mothballs, I tell ya, no insects there uh? :)
Let me know when they find some naquadah so I know when to start designing my own stargate.
Not to defend the Iraq war (a major exercise in self-delusion) but note that it's cost us $500 billion so far. That much money is beyond any normal person's imagination, and sounds like it could buy anything. But compare it to the Apollo program, which cost about $150 billion in 2008 dollars.
I suppose that if we had three times the Apollo program, we could do a Mars equivalent, that would put a few people on the Martian service for a few days and bring them home. But what's the point? You can do a few things that you couldn't do with automated probes, but is that worth a half-trillion?
People talk about all the positive things we got from the Apollo program. But its biggest effect was the convince politicians and taxpayers that manned space travel is money pit of astronomical proportions. Repeating Apollo with an even more expensive target would be a major mistake.
If you find a half trillion dollars under your seat cushions and decide to use it to conquer space, please don't spend it on a silly trip to Mars. Spend it on technology that will further a permanent human presence in space, and give private entities some hope that serious space colonization will pay big bucks. That means boring stuff, like reusable vehicles that don't cost a billion dollars per launch.
Soo startrek was right then, all advance cultures speak English and NAZI ideologies dominate the universe ?!?!?
Hail Eris!
No. Watch out for Daleks.
All Hail Discordia!
Snarky
"To have too much and not enough is like a boat person with sideburns."
Now I know why aliens wear wool.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning