What a sweet discovery! We humans found sugar molecules floating in the warm gas swaddling a young star called IRAS 16293-2422. Let’s give the young star a sweet name. Carbon (gray), oxygen (red), and hydrogen (white) or carbohydrate or glycoaldehyde or sugar molecules are seen in our sweet space. The young star is about 400 light-years away. We can’t go there right now. But we can think about probability of life on other planets. Glycoaldehyde plays a vital role in the chemical reaction that forms RNA (ribonucleic acid), a crucial biomolecule. Biomolecules form the bodies of all living beings.
We are probably not alone in the universe. Let’s welcome our sweet neighbors.
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Kevin Alexander
August 30, 2012 at 5:33 pm (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Nectar of the gods?
The Lorax
August 30, 2012 at 11:36 pm (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Brilliant, but I won’t be satisfied until we locate and confirm a Chocolate Nebula.
Then I’m outta here. Like, gone.
Stella
August 31, 2012 at 3:04 am (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
This is just amazing! Thank you for sharing it, Taslima.
F
August 31, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Stop by some other clouds and look for our drunk neighbors. Plenty of ethanol and other alcohols out there.
And ribose (and deoxyribose) are sugars, too.
Pierce R. Butler
September 1, 2012 at 4:55 am (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Astronomers: keep your eyes on IRAS 16293-2422, and soon you’ll be able to tell us about the inevitable space ants!
Birger Johansson
September 2, 2012 at 1:25 am (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
The concept of self-aware alien life creates lots of trouble for those who want to retain the frame of an anthropocentric religion (which 100% of religions are).
tony goddard
September 2, 2012 at 8:25 pm (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Vast clouds of Cyanide have also been detected in space. Probably remnants of civilisations that carried unsustainable industrialisation programmes.