THE most complex molecules yet found in space have shown how organic matter is created, pointing to a rare type of star as the origin for life’s building blocks.
The hydrocarbons anthracene and pyrene have been found in a nebula called the Red Rectangle, 1000 light years from Earth, it was reported last week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta, Georgia. A team led by Adolf Witt of the University of Toledo, Ohio, found the molecules’ spectral signatures in ultraviolet light from the nebula.
Anthracene and pyrene are polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) whose molecules contain a total…
