Scientists see one of the largest carbon-based molecules outside the solar system for the first time
Kyiv • UNN
MIT researchers have found an interstellar cloud with a large amount of pyrene, a complex carbon molecule. Pyrene consists of four fused carbon rings and belongs to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have discovered an interstellar cloud that contained a lot of pyrene, a type of molecule that contains carbon.
Writes UNN with reference to Space.
The molecule, called pyrene, consists of four fused flat rings of carbon. It is classified as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), one of the most abundant complex molecules in the visible universe.
A complex form of carbon was first spotted outside the solar system by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
The pyrene was identified in a star-forming region called the Taurus molecular cloud, 430 light-years from Earth - one of the closest clouds to our planet. The detection was made using the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope (GBT), a radio telescope at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, USA.
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Pyrene is a large molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). Researchers speculate that this substance could be the source of much of the carbon in our solar system, which is crucial for life on Earth.
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