Researchers have for the first time isolated a compound that could open new doors in understanding the chemistry that supports life in space.
Ryan Fortenberry, an astrochemist at the University of Mississippi, Ralf Kaiser, professor of chemistry at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and Alexander M. Mebel, computational chemist at Florida International University, are part of an international team that synthesized methanetetrol for the first time. They published their research on the elusive compound in the journal Nature Communications.
“This is essentially a prebiotic concentrate — a seed of life molecule,” Fortenberry said. “It’s something that can lead to more complex chemistry if given the opportunity. Think of it like an acorn that will grow into a tree in the Grove.
“The acorn alone cannot make a tree; it requires sunlight and water and lots of other things. But it can be what starts the process.”
Methanetetrol is an ortho acid – an elusive class of compounds that are particularly difficult to isolate and study but are thought to play a key role in early life chemistry.
To mimic how methanetetrol might form in space, the researchers froze water and carbon dioxide ices to near absolute zero and exposed them to cosmic ray-like radiation. This process allowed them to release the molecule into gas form and identify it using powerful ultraviolet light.
“The detection of the only alcohol with four hydroxyl groups at the same carbon atom pushes the experimental and detection capabilities to the ‘final frontier,’ the next level beyond what could be accomplished before due to the lack of experimental and computational approaches,” said Kaiser, whose lab has been trying to isolate methanetetrol for more than five years.
Since methanetetrol has so many oxygen bonds – and because oxygen does not like to bond close to other oxygens – the compound is very unstable, meaning it is likely to break down if it is not kept in the right conditions.
“You have this compact, carbon-oxygen molecule that just really wants to go ‘boom,'” Fortenberry said. “And when it does, when you give it any kind of energy, you’ll have water, hydrogen peroxide and a number of other potential compounds that are important for life.
“It’s a like a prebiotic bomb.”
If the molecule can form in the lab, it can also form in space, the authors said. This makes the compound particularly interesting to astrochemists who are looking for potential life-supporting regions.
“While carbon is the building block of life, oxygen is what makes up nearly everything else,” Fortenberry said. “Oxygen is everywhere and is essential for life as we know it.
“So, if we can find places where methanetetrol forms naturally, we know that it is a place that has the potential building blocks to support life.”
This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation grants AST-2403867.