Cosmic Distilleries

Astronomers have discovered interstellar clouds filled with ethyl alcohol. This is the same alcohol that we drink. These are giant molecular clouds and are enormous complex clouds formed from dust and gas. Some of these interstellar clouds are up to 1000 times the size of our own solar system. These interstellar dust clouds serve as a meeting place where lonely molecules can form into more complex molecules.

Their dense structure allows the formation of a cosmic distillery. In these interstellar molecular clouds it is the dust grains that server as the key nuclei for simple molecules like molecular Hydrogen, water and carbon dioxide. These come together and react nuclearly to form more complex molecules like Ethyl alcohol. When the dust grains migrate closer to the centre of the molecular cloud they approach the star that is forming within the cloud. This forming star heats up these complex molecules and evaporates the ethyl alcohol off into interstellar space.

The first ethyl alcohol cloud was detected in 1975, since then many more have been observed. The interstellar cloud G34.3 which resides in the constellation Aquila is 1000 times the size of our solar system. Within G34.3 astronomers have detected enough ethyl alcohol to supply about 300,000 pints of beer, per day to every person on earth for about a billion years. The ethyl alcohol produced in these interstellar dust clouds is not pure; it also contains other elements such as, Hydrogen Cyanide, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide and Ammonia.