In an article published on the 26 of September of this year in Science, it was announced that scientists from Cornell University, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, and the University of Cologne managed to detect a new interstellar molecule. The molecule in question is similar to ones discovered before in that it is carbon-bearing, but instead of having a straight backbone, it is characterized as having a ‘branched’ molecular structure. Iso-propyl cyanide (i-C3H7CN) is the name given to this recently discovered molecule whose structure is surprisingly similar to that of amino acids here on Earth. This molecule was detected during radio array scanning of Sagittarius B2, a large star-forming gas cloud located some 27,000 light years from our Sun. This discovery is interesting because it proves that there are still many new molecules in the universe which we have not discovered. The research of these scientists also hints at the possible existence of amino acids in the interstellar medium. Amino acids, like those found on Earth, are the building blocks for proteins and are essential for the construction of organic compounds. Since we generally do not view our universe as being suitable for organic molecules, the fact that Iso-propyl cyanide exists may be evidence that organic life could exists on other planetary bodies similar to our own.
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