CH3OH tagged posts

This artist’s impression shows the closest known protoplanetary disc, around the star TW Hydrae in the huge constellation of Hydra (The Female Watersnake). The organic molecule methyl alcohol (methanol) has been found by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in this disc. This is the first such detection of the compound in a young planet-forming disc. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

The protoplanetary disc around young star TW Hydrae is the closest known example to Earth, at ~170 light-years. As such it is an ideal target for astronomers to study discs. This system closely resembles what astronomers think the Solar System looked like during its formation more than four billion years ago...

NEOWISE series of infrared images of comet C/2012 K1 (PanSTARRS) on May 20, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL

An international team of researchers led by Martin Cordiner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has conducted measurements of H3OH (methanol) emission from comet C/2012 K1 (PanSTARRS) that could yield invaluable information about cometary compositions and provide insights on the formation of our solar system.

ALMA, thanks to its unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, was previously used to study the distributions of HCN (hydrogen cyanide), HNC (hydrogen isocyanide) and H2CO (formaldehyde) in the inner comae of comets C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) and C/2012 S1 (ISON)...