Typically, astronomers use their precious telescope time to search for specific molecules or atoms. The new wide-band spectrometer at Arecibo can digest 800 megahertz chunks of data at a time. Salter and his colleagues didn't even realize what they had found until they looked up what chemicals matched the distinctive patterns found in their data. "We found we had discovered methanimine," Salter said. Scientists are now combing through their data to see if they can detect the simplest amino acid, glycine, which forms when methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are combined with water. "The fact that we can observe these substances at such a vast distance means that there are huge amounts of them in Arp 220," said Emmanuel Momjian, a former Arecibo astronomer, now at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, N.M. "It is very intriguing to find that the ingredients of life appear in large quantities where new stars and planets are born." Related Links: |
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