For the first time, astronomers have identified molecules of glycolaldehyde – a simple form of sugar – in the gas surrounding a distant young star. The discovery shows that some of the chemical compounds needed for life existed in this relatively young solar system at the time of planet formation. The new findings, appearing in […]
The controversial notion that complex organic molecules could be relatively common in interstellar space has garnered support from US and European astronomers’ new observations of a series of diffuse interstellar bands that were first recorded 90 years ago. The new findings, published in Nature, are the work of Donald Figer, of the Rochester Institute of […]
