Arecibo telescope finds critical ingredients for the soup of life in a galaxy far, far away (Forwarded)

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FOR RELEASE: Jan. 11, 2008

Arecibo telescope finds critical ingredients for the soup of life in a
galaxy far, far away

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules
methanimine and hydrogen cyanide -- two ingredients that build
life-forming amino acids -- in a galaxy some 250 million light years away.

"Just add water!" said Robert Minchin, an Arecibo astronomer on the
project, who explained that methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are two of
the basic ingredients of life, because when combined with water they form
glycine, the simplest amino acid, a building block of life on Earth.

The astronomy team, led by Arecibo astronomer Christopher Salter,
announced this discovery today (Jan. 11) in a poster presented at the
American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin. The Arecibo Observatory
is managed by Cornell University for National Science Foundation.

The Arecibo astronomers focused on the distant galaxy Arp 220, an
ultra-luminous starburst galaxy, because it forms new stars at a very high
rate. They used the 305-meter, or 1,000-foot diameter, Arecibo radio
telescope, the world's largest and most sensitive, to observe the galaxy
at different frequencies. In fact, for the first time in April 2007, they
used the 800 megahertz wide-band mode of the main spectrometer to make
these detections.

These molecules were found by searching for radio emission at specific
frequencies. Each chemical substance has its own unique radio frequency
and astronomers can in that way identify the different substances, much
like people can be identified with their unique fingerprints.

"We weren't targeting any particular molecule, so we didn't know what we
were going to find -- we just started searching, and what we found was
incredibly exciting," said Tapasi Ghosh, an Arecibo astronomer.

"The fact that we can observe these substances at such a vast distance
means that there are huge amounts of them in Arp 220,' said Emmanuel
Momjian, a former Arecibo astronomer, now at the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory in Socorro, N.M. "It is indeed very intriguing to find that
the ingredients of life appear in large quantities where new stars and
planets are born."

In addition to Minchin, Salter, Momjian and Ghosh, the other astronomers
included: Barbara Catinella, a former Arecibo astronomer now at the Max
Plank Institute for Astrophysics in Germany; Mayra Lebron, a former
Arecibo astronomer now at the University of Puerto Rico; and Mikael
Lerner, an Arecibo astronomer.

Related Information:

* Arecibo Observatory
http://www.naic.edu/


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