By recreating extreme conditions found inside deep space interstellar clouds, scientists have produced methanetetrol, or C(OH)4 – a ‘super alcohol’ that was long theorized about but never actually seen before.
This is not the kind of alcohol you can ask for in a cocktail: it’s a highly unstable molecule made up of four hydroxyl groups (OH) at a single carbon atom. Its existence was first predicted more than a century ago.
To finally prove that prediction correct, an international team of researchers created artificial space ice in a lab, freezing carbon dioxide and water down to ultra-cold temperatures in a vacuum.
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By bombarding this ice with high-energy radiation blasts – intended to mimic the cosmic rays from stars and supernovae that zoom through space – it kicked off a chemical reaction that eventually led to methanetetrol.
“The detection of methanetetrol in space-simulation experiments demonstrates that the interstellar medium is host to an unanticipated and counterintuitive chemistry that demands scientific attention,” write the researchers in their published paper.
It’s a discovery that opens up a wealth of new possibilities about the chemical reactions that could be happening in deep space, including the freezing cold bundles of ice and dust that are interstellar clouds, lingering between stars.
If methanetetrol can form, then what other ‘impossible’ molecules could be out there? And how might this influence the chemistry and physics of space that have already been outlined in previous research?
In particular, the researchers think that their findings could be vital in the future study of other lifeforms out in the Universe, and how they might get started – not just through this molecule, but others it might lead us to.
“This molecule’s identification here represents a blind spot and the lack of its detection to date in the terrestrial environment is evidence of the counter-intuitive chemistry of the interstellar medium and justification for its promotion,” write the researchers.
One of the next steps worth taking is to see if we can spot methanetetrol out in its natural habitat of deep space – as it’s far too unstable to exist on Earth. Thanks to this latest research, astronomers now have a better idea of what they’re looking for.
Detecting it isn’t going to be easy though. Methanetetrol breaks apart very quickly when it’s hit with light, a process known as dissociative photoionization, and the researchers were only able to catch a fleeting glimpse of it here.
There’s lots more to explore, and thanks to advances in scientific techniques and telescope imagery, we’re continuing to get a better idea of what’s beyond our own planet. Indeed, only last year some of the same researchers discovered another ‘impossible’ molecule, called methanetriol.
It’s increasingly clear that chemistry in space is not the same as chemistry on Earth. In fact, some estimates suggest we’ve only discovered around 1 percent of the chemicals out in space – but scientists are working hard on it.
“This work pushes the boundaries of what we know about chemistry in space,” says chemist Ralf Kaiser, from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
The research has been published in Nature Communications.
