A team of scientists from the National Radio-Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville (Virginia, United States) has found benzonitrile in interstellar space, that is, beyond the region affected by the solar wind and its magnetic field. The instrument that has allowed them to do so is the Green Bank radio telescope, located in West Virginia.
Benzonitrile is an organic molecule that smells like almonds and functions as a chemical bond between simple carbon-based molecules and much larger ones, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which contain up to 10% of all the carbon in the universe.
The discovery has put an end to an enigma that has puzzled astronomers for thirty years: discovering the source of a faint infrared light detectable in the Milky Way and other galaxies. It was speculated that its origin could be the remnant of a supernova, a region of stars in formation or gigantic interstellar clouds, but it has turned out to be benzonitrile, which emitted signals from the Molecular Cloud Taurus 1, located 430 light years from Earth. .
Benzonitrile is one of the simplest of the so-called aromatic molecules. These compounds are very common on our planet (they are everywhere: drugs, food …), but it is the first time that one has been detected in space with a radio telescope.
Why is this discovery important?
Because it tests the ability of radio telescopes to detect radio signals as weak as those emitted by molecules – organic or not – present in interstellar space, and therefore to contribute to the understanding of the cosmos.
In addition, the discovery of organic molecules based on carbon and essential for life confirms that the conditions that made possible the emergence of organisms on Earth may exist elsewhere in the universe.
Interstellar clouds are known to be conducive to the formation of complex organic molecules that contain nitrogen and carbon bonds, building blocks of amino acids that create proteins and make life as we know it possible.
A few years ago, a study published in Nature suggested that comets and other icy objects can transport organic molecules to environments favorable to life, a phenomenon that could explain the origin of water and organisms on our planet.
Image (B. Maguire and B. Saxton; NRAO / AUI / NSF): Benzonitrile structure superimposed on the Taurus 1 Molecular Cloud, where it was found.
