Re: Scientists found one of the largest carbon-based space molecules ever.

On 10/30/2024 10:49 PM, Pro Plyd wrote:

  https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/scientists-found-one-of-the- largest-carbon-based-space-molecules-ever-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal
 Astronomers have discovered one of the largest
carbon-based molecules found in deep space,
located within the Taurus molecular cloud, 430
light-years from Earth. The finding is
significant because it provides further clues
that might help solve a longstanding mystery
in astrochemistry: Where does carbon, the
building block of life, come from?

A couple of years ago a paper made the proposal that most of the carbon in the universe had to have been created in stars around the size of ours or larger, but not large enough to go Nova.  The carbon would have been expelled from these stars when they entered their red giant phase at the end of their active stellar lives.  So carbon would have accumulated more slowly in the universe because it would take longer for these stars to age into red giants.  Stars the size of ours would not have expelled their carbon until they were 10 billion years old, but stars larger than ours would cycle faster.
Elements heavier than iron are supposed to be created in super nova or stellar collisions.
Ron Okimoto

 The molecule, called pyrene, is made up of four
fused planar rings of carbon.
 "This is now the seventh individual PAH
identified in space since we first found one
in 2021," said Ilsa Cooke, assistant professor
in the UBC department of chemistry. "[PAHs]
have similar chemical structures to the
building blocks of life. By learning more
about how these molecules form and are
transported in space, we learn more about our
own solar system and so, the life within it."
 The astronomers estimated that pyrene
accounted for about 0.1% of the carbon found
in the cloud. "That is an absolutely massive
abundance. An almost unbelievable sink of
carbon. It’s an interstellar island of
stability," said McGuire.
 What was even more intriguing to the team,
aside from finding pyrene in the origin
place of our solar system, is the fact that
the temperatures of the cloud were measured
to be only 10 Kelvin (-263 degrees Celsius).
On Earth, PAHs are formed during high
temperature processes, namely through the
combustion of fossil fuels. Finding them in
this cold environment was therefore
surprising. "Future work aims to explore
whether PAHs can form somewhere that’s
extremely cold, or whether they arrive from
elsewhere in the universe, potentially via
the death throes of an old star," said
Cooke.