Blue=nitrogen, grey=carbon, white=hydrogen.
Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories,
researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in
interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are
key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating
between the stars.
The scientists used the National Science Foundation's Green
Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of gas some 25,000
light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The chemicals
they found in that cloud include a molecule thought to be a precursor to a key
component of DNA and another that may have a role in the formation of the amino
acid alanine.