Madison
A cloud of dust and gas that lies 25 000 light years away contains vinegar,
according to astronomers in the US.
At last week鈥檚 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison,
Wisconsin, researchers announced results from the recently dedicated
Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) array of radio telescopes near Hat
Creek, California.This array has detected the signature of acetic acid
molecules鈥攂etter known as vinegar鈥攊n spectra from a dense cloud of
gas called Sagittarius B2, located near the centre of our Galaxy.
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鈥淎cetic acid could have been one of the first steps toward the chemicals of
life,鈥� says Lewis Snyder of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, a
member of the discovery team.
Ammonia is already known to exist in interstellar space, and it could combine
with acetic acid to form the simplest amino acid, glycine. Amino acids are the
building blocks of proteins and DNA, and essential ingredients of living
things.
Two years ago, one member of Snyder鈥檚 team tentatively reported that he had
found glycine itself in the same region of space (New 杏吧原创, 11
June 1994, p 4). But this has proved difficult to verify.
鈥淭he discovery of acetic acid makes it very plausible that amino acids do
exist in space,鈥� says Snyder.