They finally found God??? o-0

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zioburosky13

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"Naphthalene, one of the most complex molecules yet discovered in the interstellar medium. The detection of this molecule suggests that a large number of the key components in prebiotic terrestrial chemistry could have been present in the interstellar matter from which the Solar System was formed."

Read the rest here
 
Good stuff. Naphthalene is not that simple to synthesize and the only practical way to obtain it as far as I'm aware is from fractal distillation.
It's hard to think of how it could have been formed.
 
Damn, can someone put this to plain english? I have a hard-time deciphering what does this article mean (I'm not an ace when it comes to chemistry english).
 
Ravager69 said:
Damn, can someone put this to plain english? I have a hard-time deciphering what does this article mean (I'm not an ace when it comes to chemistry english).
Click to expand...

Well, it all boils down to this, really: in the constellation Perseus, in a region far far away where stars are being formed, some scientists have detected the presence of naphthalene. Now, naphthalene is a pretty complex molecule that (when you hit it with UV radiation and mix some water and ammonia with it) is capable to produce aminoacids and other complex molecules necessary in the development of life as we know it.

So, basically, detecting the existence of naphthalene in star-and-planet-forming clouds means that one of the key ingredients to start the whole "production of life as we know it mystery" is already there before there are even planets. The same could hold true for what happened during the formation of our Solar System (i.e. naphthalene could already have been there). It basically simplifies the whole idea of "how the bloody, bloody, bloody hell did life come into existence".

Get it?
 
Naphtalene is an aromatic compound, something like two benzene glued together at one side.

How it can be produced?
Full-synthesis must be a bitch, however, you should know that partial burning of organic material in anaerobic conditions produces a lot of aromatic compounds.
You can find a lot of them in cigarette smoke and they are almost always carcinogenic, that's why cigarette is bad for your health.

So even though it is a fairly complex compound, it should be very easy to produce (just burn some stuff the right way).
And its large delocalized electron-system (i.e. aromatic ring) makes it quite stable too.
Which means, that it should have been found a long time ago.

The article says that there are a lot of known spectroscopic signatures that can be attributed to diffuse electron-systems, it's just they weren't as yet identified with known compounds.
Now, they managed to do it for some bands, and the result was the naphtalene cation.

The rest is told by alec. ;)
 
So even though it is a fairly complex compound, it should be very easy to produce (just burn some stuff the right way).
And its large delocalized electron-system (i.e. aromatic ring) makes it quite stable too.
Which means, that it should have been found a long time ago.
Click to expand...

But that's the whole point. It's pretty easy to produce, but the easy routes of production involve any number of degradations - all from larger and more complex hydrocarbons. The problem is there are no known, more complex hydrocarbons in interstellar nebulae which can degrade to form naphthalene. I'm not aware of *any* synthesis route which utilises purely simpler hydrocarbons.

This presents us with a problem; how the feck did it get there? This is made worse when we consider that the fecker is unsaturated. It's semi-credible to suggest that very specific conditions in a stellar nebula could possible result in the formation of complex hydrocarbons. Semi credible, but not very credible. Even if this did happen, the electronic repulsion of all those potential pi electron bonds, coupled with the presumable excess of hydrogen would surely lead to non saturated bicycloalkanes such as decalin. That said I know nowt about stellar nebulae.

Other than that, syllogz and Alec sum it up well.

200px-Naphthalene-3D-balls.png
 
Oh, so it boils down to scientists finding naphtalene in other solar system. And there I go thinking it's something goddamn complex and therefore beyond my understanding. Heh. Thanks for the explanation.

So this means that the Force is not midio-chlorines-whatever, but naphtalene? Cool, I'm hoarding the stuff already.
 
Yoshi:

You are right.

My guess for a possible production route would start with localized high-density of small hydrocarbons at high pressure at relatively high temperature and/or with excess of ionizing radiation.
But then again, those radiations/temperatures could potentially brake down the aromatic bonds.


OHH! NOW I KNOW!
It must be those huge gusts of neutrinos that can randomly kick out some of the materials from the hot spots of these nebulae.
No. That's not it.
Just kidding. :wink:
 
My guess for a possible production route would start with localized high-density of small hydrocarbons at high pressure at relatively high temperature and/or with excess of ionizing radiation.
But then again, those radiations/temperatures could potentially brake down the aromatic bonds.
Click to expand...

Well I can't come up with anything better than that. I just can't quiet get my head around the creation of all those pi bonds in such conditions, presumably where hydrogen is the prevailing element. But in general agreed, and again I don't really know much about the conditions in nebulae.
 
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