08-24-2009 - space

Anthony Remijan: These organic molecules that we find on the Earth are actually out there in space.

That’s astronomer Anthony Remijan with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia. Remijan is talking about large molecules that formed in space – molecules that might be the building blocks of all life here on Earth.

Anthony Remijan: These are the basic chemical elements that build up the larger molecules that we find in biology today, things like amino acids and proteins.

Remijan and his colleagues pointed radio telescope dishes toward the center of our galaxy, a region called Sagittarius B2 North. They found faint radiation from 720 different space molecules, many of which are still unidentified.

Anthony Remijan: Some of the largest molecules are things that you actually find every single day in your own house: ethylene glycol which is actually an antifreeze, acetic acid which is in vinegar – even things like formic acid, which you find in bee and ant stings.

Remijan said that these precursors to life might have formed in the interstellar medium, the clouds of gas and dust between stars.

Anthony Remijan: We think that the molecules that formed in the interstellar medium got bottled up into comets and asteroids and meteorites, and then actually seeded early planets like the Earth in order to seed the chemistry necessary to drive this type of formation of large molecules.

Our thanks to:
Anthony Remijan
Alma Commissioning and Science Verification Scientist
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Charlottesville, VA

Photo Credit: Bill Saxton
NRAO

Written by Jorge Salazar

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