LOTS OF BOOZE
Pure alcohol has been discovered by scientists in large quantities, Four hundred trillion trillion pints of foaming beverage could be made with the amount discovered in a hydrogen cloud not far--in interstellar terms--fromthe Aquila constellation. But since the site is 10,000 light years from Earth, don't look for a drop in the price of beer any time soon.
Physicists Eric Herbst and Frank De Lucia, both of Ohio State University, contributed a study of the radio frequencies of ethanol alcohol to April 1995's Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data.
This gave the University of Manchester's Tom Millar the clue to a mystery which had puzzled the team of British astronomers of which he was part. They had been puzzled by 70 of the 350 spectral lines given off by the molecules of a cloud they were studying.
The Herbst-De Lucia piece helped them solve the mystery, leading to findings which apparently confirmed the presence of gaseous ethyl alcohol in hydrogen clouds. Herbst stated, "It seems the ethanol molecule is found in relatively high concentrations in regions where stars are forming."
Endless alcohol--what a gas!