Is there a nebula in the constellation Aquila that contains ethanol?

In 1988, T. Millar and his colleagues in the UK and Sweden trained the Onsala Radio Telescope towards a star forming cloud called W51-M in the northern edge of the constellation Aquila the Eagle. They detected the emission from the Ethanol molecule C2H5OH at a frequency of 103.5 Giga cycles. The source was only about 10 arc seconds in diameter, and had a temperature of 100 K. It is located near RA(1950) = 19h 21m and Dec(1950) = +14d 25' about 5 degrees east of the bright star Zeta Aquila. Astronomers have also searched for this molecule in the Orion Nebula Messier-42 and have not detected it. It has been detected in the giant molecular cloud called Sagittarius B2 in the center of the Milky Way towards the constellation Sagittarius. Have a look at the Millar et al article in Astronomy and Astrophysics vol. 205, page L5 for more details.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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