Pubs.GISS: Abstract of Johnson et al. 1977

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Johnson et al. 1977

Johnson, D.R., F.J. Lovas, C.A. Gottlieb, E.W. Gottlieb, M.M. Litwak, P. Thaddeus, and M. Guelin, 1977: Detection of interstellar ethyl cyanide. Astrophys. J., 218, 370-376, doi:10.1086/155691.

Twenty-four millimeter-wave emission lines of ethyl cyanide (CH₃CH₂CN) have been detected in the Orion Nebula (OMC-1) and seven in Sgr B2. To derive precise radial velocities from the astronomical data, a laboratory measurement of the rotational spectrum of ethyl cyanide has been made at frequencies above 41 GHz. In OMC-1, the rotational temperature of ethyl cyanide is 90 K (in good agreement with other molecules), the local-standard-of-rest radial velocity is 4.5±1.0 km/s (versus 8.5 km/s for most molecules), and the column density is 1.8×10¹⁴ cm^-2 (a surprisingly high figure for a complicated molecule). The high abundance of ethyl cyanide in the Orion Nebula suggests that ethane and perhaps larger saturated hydrocarbons may be common constituents of molecular clouds and have escaped detection only because they are nonpolar, or only weakly so.