{"id":123637,"date":"2021-06-10T01:22:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T08:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/astronomers-spot-methanol-in-a-weird-part-of-the-galaxy-changing-where-they-might-hunt-for-aliens"},"modified":"2021-06-10T01:22:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T08:22:38","slug":"astronomers-spot-methanol-in-a-weird-part-of-the-galaxy-changing-where-they-might-hunt-for-aliens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/astronomers-spot-methanol-in-a-weird-part-of-the-galaxy-changing-where-they-might-hunt-for-aliens","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers spot methanol in a weird part of the galaxy, changing where they might hunt for aliens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronomers-spot-methanol-in-a-weird-part-of-the-galaxy-changing-where-they-might-hunt-for-aliens2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve only gone and upended a widely held scientific idea.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Lilia Koelemay, a graduate researcher at the University of Arizona, said in a statement about the study that \u201cthe detection of these organic molecules at the galactic edge may imply that organic chemistry is still prevalent at the outer reaches of the galaxy, and the [galatic habitable zone] may extend much further from the galactic center than the currently established boundary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Koelemay also said, \u201cThe widely held assumption was that in the outskirts of our galaxy, the chemistry necessary to form organics just doesn\u2019t occur.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s next \u2014 The new finding overturns this assumption, and researchers can now widen the search for life to stars closer to the galaxy\u2019s outer edge, a no-man\u2019s-land of cold matter, isolated stars, and black holes left from long-ago stellar explosions. It\u2019s a place Koelemay says has fewer stars like our life-giving Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019ve only gone and upended a widely held scientific idea. Lilia Koelemay, a graduate researcher at the University of Arizona, said in a statement about the study that \u201cthe detection of these organic molecules at the galactic edge may imply that organic chemistry is still prevalent at the outer reaches of the galaxy, and the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":631,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1527,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alien-life","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}