A Molecule's Fingerprint Could Help Explain Life on Earth

A special type of sulfur molecule, called simple deuterated methyl mercaptan (CH2DSH), detected in a young Sun-like star, may help explain the formation of life on Earth.

Sulfur is essential for all life forms and is a fundamental component of proteins and amino acids.

Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron light facility at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), Hayley Bunn and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics were able to create a "fingerprint" of the molecule by analyzing how it wobbles and rotates in response to ultra-bright synchrotron light, Europa Press reported on Thursday.

Now, other researchers on the international team are using this fingerprint or signature to search for more similar molecules in distant space.

This could allow them to reconstruct how the molecules of life on Earth formed billions of years ago. The work was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"We are trying to understand how far we can go, chemically, to create larger biological molecules and what environments are necessary for their formation," Bunn said in a statement.

"It would be interesting one day to answer how this is transmitted to planets and, hopefully, to life," he stressed.

The CLS synchrotron was critical to the success of Bunn's research, since the vibrational signals of this basic molecule are extremely difficult to detect.

Synchrotron light is much brighter than conventional sources, allowing even the faintest signals to be identified.

"There are very few synchrotrons in the world --- possibly four --- that perform the high-resolution terahertz spectroscopy that we need, and one of them is CLS," Bunn stressed.

CLS also offers researchers remote access for this type of work, with specialized support, simplifying the research process as much as possible.

Bunn and his collaborators were surprised by the complexity of the molecule's characteristic vibrational and rotational pattern.

While their study provides clear and useful information for identifying it in space, there are still questions about its underlying chemistry.