Giant Cloud of Methanol Found in Space

kakos writes "Astronomers have recently discovered a giant cloud of methanol in our region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The cloud measures 463 billion kilometres across. Study of this cloud could lead scientists to a greater understanding of how star formation occurs. Furthermore, the abundance of organic molecules in interstellar space could also shed light on the chemical origins of life."

Post Petroleum economy solved!

[jvalenzu]

Finally, a solution for our post-peak oil problems! Now, all we need to do is make a solar powered spaceship and pack a really long siphoning hose...

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[Edward Teach]

Back in Texas, we called that an Oklahoma Credit Card...

Re:Peak oil shmeak oil

[Solra Bizna]

By "it" I meant that Americans really think that...

-:sigma.SB

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[chrisatoremus]

don't light a match!

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[Kethinov]

Slashdot needs an ability to edit posts, I say.

"Despite the fact that legal drugs were less dangerous" should read "despite the fact that legal drugs are arguably more dangerous."

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[drsmithy]

Despite the fact that legal drugs were less dangerous" should read "despite the fact that legal drugs are arguably more dangerous.

There's no "arguably" about it. Both alcohol and tobacco are demonstrably more dangerous than marijuana.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[LordVader717]

It's always "arguable" when comparing the dangers of different drugs.

I presume you are referring to the damage to personal health, and in that respect, marijuana doesn't do well either.

Coming to the conclusion that one is better than the other is just wrong.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[ktulu1115]

...marijuana doesn't do well either

I would say that depends how you consume it.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[Oldsmobile]

Actually, pure clean heroin, when used with clean needles and equipment is perfectly safe and a habbit can be maintained indefinetly with absolutely no medical problems.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[temojen]

Except the the "habbit" can't be stopped. And has a profound detrimental effect on a person's life, if not their health.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[Oldsmobile]

The habit can't be stopped, easily, but has no detrimental effect on a person's health.

As far as effect on life, well, that depends. If one is able to receive a clean free supply of heroin, it probably has no effect on their life either.

MODS: The TRUTH is not a troll...

[mrchaotica]

... whether you like it or not! He's right; marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco in the sense that alcohol and tobacco contain substances that lead to serious diseases, and marijuana doesn't. Moreover, marijuana is also no more dangerous than alcohol in terms of impairment during use. The only reason marijuana is illegal is historical: because it was frequently used by Mexican and African Americans in the early part of the 20th century, racists used it as a scapegoat to hurt those groups.

Re:MODS: The TRUTH is not a troll...

[temojen]

Marijuana is especially less dangerous than methanol, which is more likely to cause blindness than drunkenness. That said, inhaling partially burnt hydrocarbons from any plant is bad for you.

Re:MODS: The TRUTH is not a troll...

[fireweaver]

The "inhaling partially burnt hydrocarbons from any plant" problem has been solved. Here is one of many solutions: https://www.vapolutionvaporizers.com/cgi-bin/ccp51 /cp-app.cgi [vapolutionvaporizers.com]

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[Scott Swezey]

A few quotes come to mind "Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!" Then there is the one after posting that says something like "than you should have used the preview button."

All joking asside though, we know now why Bush is in such a hurry to get to Mars, and further, I guess.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[walt-sjc]

Also note that you could smoke a bushel of industrial hemp and not get high. You don't need BC superweed to make methonol or use the fiber in other products. The US and other countries could just allow certain seed stock that has a very low THC content to be grown. May even be able to be genetically engineered out.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[mrchaotica]

The issue is not whether the hemp that people want to grow legally has a lot of THC or not; the issue is the fact that people can hide drug-grade marijuana among the industrial hemp, and it would be extremely hard for the DEA to tell the difference.

In my opinion, the easiest solution is just to legalize and regulate marijuana (in the same way as alcohol), and stop caring what variety of hemp the farmers are growing.

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[foandd]

Yeah, that's a cool conspiracy theory and all...

Of course, those who are paying attention will know that there was a big push in the early 20th century to outlaw many drugs which were legal but which were causing major social problems (complicated by the fact that technically speaking, Congress doesn't have the authority to regulate such things. Which is why Timothy Leary actually succeeded in making marijuana legal in the late 60s; but I digress).

The guy who was in charge of such things, the nation's f

Mod parent up

[Oldsmobile]

That aint no troll!

Re:Post Petroleum economy solved!

[crotherm]

Parent is not a troll. It is documented history. /. has been infiltrated by corporate shills and DEA narks...

Scientists described the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

as "great tasting", with "less tar".

Re:Scientists described the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... close, but no cigar.

Re:Scientists described the cloud

[mattjb0010]

You've obviously been smoking something else if you don't know there's a difference between methanol and menthol.

Fire Up the Engines!

[Quaoar]

Oh wait, you said Methanol...well, we can still get totally wasted off of that, broseph!

/Frat Aliens

Re:Fire Up the Engines!

[Opportunist]

Well, you'd prolly go blind... but what can it hurt, let's risk an eye.

Re:Fire Up the Engines!

[fsckr]

What can it hurt?? A friend of mine was trekking in Kenya a few months ago, chillin with the natives. He told me that they make a killer alcoholic drink that tastes pretty good. Little did I know what he meant by killer until I saw this: http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story _id=41596 [inq7.net] Either way, no methanol moonshine for me thnx fsckr

The state of general knowledge.

[Yeshua]

You know things are starting to slip when it has to be explicitly pointed out in an article about an astronomic discovery that you can't drink the thing.

Other than jokingly, I wonder how many people thought "Cool, space booze!"?

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you eat that makes you fart methanOL?

  H
HCOH - methanol
  H

  H
HCH - methane
  H

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, according to your diagram, all you have to do is BREATHE.

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[Yeshua]

In an addendum to my dismay, a good chunk of the early posters don't seem to know the difference between methanol, methane and (worse) menthol.

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[gbobeck]

I guess that blows away (no pun) the "Are those gasious clouds circling..." comment I was about to use.

Take heart... no one (at least at the time of this post) has confused methanol/methane/menthol with Mentos.

 

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[ByteSlicer]

What do you mean I can't drink it ?!!! *** Me takes giant sip and swallows cubic lightsecond of space booze *** Aaarghh!!! I'm BLIND !!!

Re:The state of general knowledge.

[bergeron76]

I was actually thinking a great interplanetary fart cloud in space.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Read parent before posting drinking jokes, please

[The Wooden Badger]

Really, nerds not knowing that methanol causes blindness is the bigger joke.

Old news...

[deadgoon42]

This is old news [weeklyworldnews.com].

Re:Old news...

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

You mean people actually believe this stuff?!?!

Dreams

[mqduck]

This reminds me of the pool of ethanol I swim in in my dreams.

Re:sorry

[mqduck]

It's not a pool either.

Oh. Methanol, not methane.

[ccmay]

Interesting. Methanol is a precursor for some amino acid syntheses.

-ccm

Re:Oh. Methanol, not methane.

[AWeishaupt]

This is definately the most interesting part of this discovery. We know that simple organic molecules like MeOH were most likely critical steps in the biochemical origins of life on Earth, and it has been generally accepted in the past that these kinds of molecules couldn't remain stable in space, primarily due to radiolysis, whilst now it seems they can.

Re:Oh. Methanol, not methane.

[ShadowXOmega]

Ummm
if it cant be stable, need something to be constantly producing it:

- a huge cloud of interestellar bacteria
- a huge junkyard for organic waste
- may be is an accident, like the oil in our seas (may be a organic fuel, methanol is a good fuel too)
- or may be a small planet there is pumping all it out (solar system scale contamination)

:)

Alert the neocons !

[javaDragon]

Time for a regime change in space, let's liberate aliens and bring them democracy.

Reminds me of Captain Janeway

[saramakos]

"There's Coffee in that Nebula"

Origins of life my foot

[Quadraginta]

Methanol (sporting a mere 6 atoms) is an "organic" molecule in the sense of being related to the chemistry of life only by courtesy, because it's got a carbon atom. I suggest information about how methanol is distributed between the stars will have as much relevance to the origin of life as knowing how helium or hydroxyl radicals or plain old dust is distributed. Which is to say, not much.

Re:Origins of life my foot

[AhNewBis]

Considering Helium is the byproduct of a nuclear Hydrogen reaction in stars, I'd say its VERY important regarding possible origins or histories of life long past.

Re:Origins of life my foot

[FirienFirien]

Considering how tough it is to find organic molecules at all - whether organic by courtesy or not - finding a vast cloud of methanol is extraordinary. While finding methanol on earth would at best be vaguely interesting, since in the lifetime of the earth we've managed to significantly bypass the stage of small molecules, remember that if you've got 463 billion km of methanol there's a fair chance that something did it. Whether it's vapour trails from a cosmic express or some strange unforeseen product from the explosion of a star with just the right mass balance to get this kind of ratio of atoms to form the products, it's hugely interesting to find it up there.

The chances of two random atoms interacting is middling to fair. Biatoms will readily form molecules, especially since the simplest atom is hydrogen which will happily pair up with another of itself. The chances of two different molecules interacting closely enough to react is very low. On earth we need dense solutions with a heat source to get a reaction to happen. The chances of interaction to produce a cloud of particles is very low, though with the amount of stuff out there you can understand how it happens. The chance of getting reaction of enough molecules in one way to produce enough of one kind of product to show up on a spectrometer is fantastically small. Note that the article doesn't say "methane and methanol", which would be more expected from reaction with carbon in a hydrogen-rich environment; and if you mix oxygen and methane together in an attempt to get methanol, you'll get the lower-energy products of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water.

Re:Origins of life my foot

[Quadraginta]

Can't say that I agree. In the first place, about forty [nrao.edu] of the 130 or so known interstellar molecules are as big or bigger than methanol. In the second place, methanol is readily formed in a reducing environment, such as you'd find in hydrogen-rich interstellar space. Third, while it is true that the formation reaction rate would be low, because as you point out the interstellar gas density is low, it is equally true that it's got billions of years to react. Remember how easily Stanley Miller got amino

oops, forgot an H

[Quadraginta]

Sorry, that should be:

CH4 + H2O -> CH3OH + H2

I feel like a Yorkshireman, losing H's like this...

Martinis anyone?

[ncrypted]

you know, If we could muster enough methane, the right catalyst, and a gallon of vermouth we could have a martini almost half a light-year across.......

And who says there's no God...

Re:Martinis anyone?

[MarkChovain]

Did you perhaps mean Martianinis?

Re:Martinis anyone?

[clickety6]

But where do you find the 2 petatonne olive? And the mega-mini-umbrella ?

Re:Martinis anyone?

[Omaze]

For some reason thinking about a 2 petatonne olive just set me off. I'm going to be grinning for the rest of the night.

Re:Martinis anyone?

[subtropolis]

Do you mean ginning?

WMDs!

[Pao|o]

Maybe Bush was wrong all along. Maybe he should've invaded Vulcan for WMDs & terrorists. Nevermind they have the galaxy's largest supply of Methanol reserves. Must liberate the alcohol cause God told me so!

Help me?

[4D6963]

Ummm let's see... let's say that a liter of methonal costs about 30 USD cents, that's $3 * 10^11 a cubic kilometer. Provided that the cloud is about round, it must have a volume of about 4 * 10^35 cubic kilometers. Ummm.. I only need to know the density of this cloud in order to calculate how much it's worth in order to attract investors in order to send a tube there and suck all of it off.

Maybe the desnity is indicated somewhere in the article... should I read the article? This is Slashdot, no way!

Their problem our benefit?

[smvp6459]

Could this have been the result of a cosmic Exxon Valdez?

I knew it

[MoonPost]

That must be Benders heaven!!!

Anyone ever notice...

[Fry-kun]

...that on every article about space exploration, there's always a sentence attached, which reads something like "[this discovery] could lead scientists to a greater understanding of X" (where X is usually Life, Universe, or Everything)
It's kind of starting to get on my nerves.. oh well..

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[godless dave]

I notice that too, and it bugs the shit out of me.

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[Zutroi_Zatatakowsky]

I love you, I thought I was the only one to notice that. I'm sick of seeing this stupid sentence.

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[mahmud]

I guess that's the easiest way to attract public attention and most importantly funding.

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[dyslexicbunny]

Interesting...

Fry-kun's post could lead us to a greater understanding of /. mods.

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[gstoddart]

...that on every article about space exploration, there's always a sentence attached, which reads something like "[this discovery] could lead scientists to a greater understanding of X" (where X is usually Life, Universe, or Everything)
It's kind of starting to get on my nerves.. oh well..

Has it occured to you that Astronomy is trying to answer the Really Big Questions (tm)? These are fundamental questions about the nature of the Universe, not just nose-picking. Also, the discovery of vast amounts of such

Re:Anyone ever notice...

[Fry-kun]

I agree that astronomy tackles these important issues - but the thing is, they ALWAYS do that. That is, EVERY discovery in astronomy brings us closer to understanding the all-important questions and answers - what I'm annoyed at is that the routine makes the news every friggin' time. Yes, they made a new discovery - that's awesome and should by all means make the news - but the notice that it might give us an insight into X is fallacious since it doesn't really tell us a damn thing (it may give us insight i

It's Melllvar!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

MELLLVAR
It is I!

[Everyone gasps and looks up. Above them is a hovering, green cloud.]

BENDER
Whoa! What a cheesy effect!

MELLLVAR
I am not an effect! You doubt my power?

BENDER
I do.

[Melllvar zaps Welshy with a bolt of lightning and he falls over.]

WELSHY (shouting)
Aye!

[Fry runs to him and holds him.]

FRY (screaming)
Welshy!

No surprise

[JumperCable]

They are just mixing up another batch of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Methanol in space...

[Reemi]

...is that considered free as in Beer?

Nope,

[temojen]

Just free as in radical.

(CH3+ + OH- => CH3OH)

I'd like to send a rocket

[SimianOverlord]

To blow that shit out of it. Man, that would be good.

What they don't say....

[phlegmofdiscontent]

...is that the cloud isn't made of just methanol. It just has enough methanol to be detectable from its radio emissions. Most of this cloud (which has been known for a long time) is made up of hydrogen and helium, just like most of the universe.

Methanol?

[miscz]

Wake me up when they find some ethanol. :\

Re:Methanol?

[slughead]

Wake me up when they find some ethanol. :\

Why? So you can pass out again?

Re:Methanol?

[miscz]

I'm never passing out when drinking, I'm just resting!

somebody really dropped a big one ...

[SimonInOz]

Wow, that's the hugest fart in the entire .. sorry, I thought you said methANE.

Sorry. Forget I said that. Sorry

Re:somebody really dropped a big one ...

[ArsonSmith]

And did you know that this cloud is on the other side of Uranus?

Where? I can't see it

[uniqueUser]

OK, two things about TFA:

1.) Am I the only one who could not see the cloud in the picture?
2.) I like how they added "Methanol is not suitable for human consumption".

News?

[floki]

This should be news? Haven't you heard about Beer in Space [comedycorner.org]?

Chewin' the cud

[ToxikFetus]

Holy crap! There must be a whole bunch of belching cows in interstellar space!

Just imagine...

[perrin5]

How long you could run your laptop [slashdot.org] over there!!!

Oh my god we're all gonna die!

[AgentDib]

Methanol isn't as flammable as Gasoline.. but it's still flammable!!! What's going to happen to us when a passing comet sets off sparks and 460 BILLION KILOMETERS of space explodes? The shock wave will knock earth out of rotation and send us hurtling out of the Solar System! We're all going to freeze to death!

Giant methanol cloud...

[whyrat]

I for one welcome our giant methanol overloards.

Okay,

[Trogre]

Who farted?

Zqykyqhjjjayzyyxx, I'm looking at you!