Walking the Globe

Life On another Planet !?

Radio astronomers say they have found evidence of large quantities of the chemical building blocks for life in a galaxy about 250 million light-years from Earth.

Arp 220 is so thick with stars that astronomers estimate supernovas, the suicidal explosions of young massive stars, are happening four times a year, as compared to our own relatively quiescent Milky Way galaxy, with a supernova about every half-century or so.

So it was with an open mind and no set agenda that astronomers collected data for about 30 hours last April using a device that analyses multiple frequencies simultaneously.

The instrument can detect chemicals that incoming radio waves have passed through before reaching the telescope’s collecting dish.

What they found, however, was totally unexpected: methanimine and hydrogen cyanide.

The discovery is significant because methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are building blocks for amino acids, the foundation of life.

"Methanimine has barely been seen in our own galaxy," says Arecibo astronomer Dr Christopher Salter. "Nobody had looked for it in deep space."

Salter and his colleagues didn’t even realise what they had found until they looked up what chemicals matched the distinctive patterns found in their data.

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.

_{Original post on abc science article[+]}