To Grow, Stars and Planets Need Space Dust ... and Formaldehyde?

From: Ron (baalke_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 07/13/04 

Date: 13 Jul 2004 09:56:25 -0700

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/spacedus.htm
      
TO GROW, STARS AND PLANETS NEED SPACE DUST... AND FORMALDEHYDE?
Ohio State University News Release
June 30, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Scientists at Ohio State University have found that a
formaldehyde-based chemical is 100 times more common in parts of our
galaxy than can be explained.

The finding could change ideas about how organic molecules form in the
universe, and how those molecules' critical interaction with dust causes
stars and planets to form.

The scientists compared the results of experiments from an international
team of chemists to telescopic measurements of the amount of methyl
formate -- a product of alcohol and formaldehyde -- in the swirling dust
clouds that dot our Milky Way galaxy. On Earth, methyl formate
is commonly used as an insecticide.

Based on telescope data, if the gaseous methyl formate condensed into
liquid form, a typical dust cloud would contain a thousand trillion
trillion gallons of the chemical.

Interstellar dust clouds contain the chemical seeds of new stars and
planetary systems, explained Eric Herbst Distinguished Professor of
Mathematical and Physical Sciences at Ohio State. Most people are probably
familiar with the dust cloud known as the Horsehead Nebula
in the constellation Orion.

While scientists have long known that hydrogen is the most common
chemical element in the universe, just 10 years ago Herbst -- a
professor of physics, chemistry, and astronomy -- and his colleagues
discovered that there were also large quantities of alcohol in dust
clouds in space. The presence of methyl formate suggests that other
molecules may play a more prominent role in star and planet formation
than scientists ever suspected.

"Even using our best models of interstellar chemistry, we still don't
fully understand how these molecules could have formed," Herbst said.
"Clearly, something else is going on."

Herbst reported the new results June 23 at the International Symposium
on Molecular Spectroscopy in Columbus.

Three groups of chemists from the United States, Canada, and Norway had
previously conducted laboratory experiments to determine how alcohol and
other molecules produce methyl formate. Herbst and Ohio State
postdoctoral researcher Helen Roberts used that data to
construct a new model of how such reactions happen in space, and then
used the model to predict how much methyl formate would be found in the
typical interstellar dust cloud.

Next, the Ohio State scientists consulted the radio spectrum of the dust
clouds, which gives them the unique chemical signatures of the different
molecules floating inside.

The spectra showed that the average ratio of hydrogen molecules to
molecules of methyl formate was a billion to one. But the model that
Herbst and Roberts derived had predicted only a fraction of that amount.

"We calculated the ratio to be 100 billion to one, so the model must be
deficient," Herbst said.

Scientists will have to refine the models before they can truly know how
stars and planets form, he said.

According to accepted theory, gas molecules floating in these clouds
must join and nuclear reactions must begin before stars can form. Dust
particles are key to the process because they provide a surface for
reactions to take place.

Among their future goals, Herbst, Roberts, and their colleagues want to
determine exactly what space dust is made of and what the surface
texture is like, since both would affect chemical reactions -- a task
that amounts to studying individual dust grains thousands of light years
away.

Modeling such large, complex systems requires a great deal of computing
power, and measuring the actual amounts of chemicals in these faraway
clouds is difficult. Herbst said that supercomputers and telescopes are
just beginning to advance to the point where such things are possible.
In the future, he would like to form a consortium of researchers in
molecular astronomy to pool ideas and resources.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

#

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