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Today’s astronomers have access to telescopes which can “see” not just visible light, but into the infra-red and below that into radio wavelengths. According to Dr Mitton, all of these molecules emit radiation “at the interface between the infra-red and radio wavebands”.Because the water vapour in the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs the signals from the molecules, observations have to be done using telescopes at high altitudes, such at the UK’s James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on top of the extinct volcano of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. They are 150 to 250 light years across and although composed of dust and gas contain as much material as 10 million of our suns.The molecules made in these interstellar chemical plants emit weak radiation – each one giving out its own characteristic radiation “fingerprint” or spectrum. The clouds are the most massive individual entities in our galaxy”.

Vast areas in our galaxy are seething with complex chemical reactions, forging atoms together to form complicated molecules ranging from alcohol to formaldehyde.The giant molecular clouds where these molecules are found, according to Dr Simon Mitton of the Royal Astronomical Society, “are the birthplaces of new stars and planets and are very rich in these complex molecules. Could it be that the cradle of living matter was not the warm surface of the earth, but the cold darkness of outer space?Certainly, the discoveries of the past 20 years indicate that the “void” between the stars is far from empty. From these beginnings, Darwin thought, might come molecules that could reproduce themselves, and so exhibit the hallmark of life.Darwin’s speculations were inevitably earthbound. It raises anew one of the ultimate questions: where and how did life begin? The founder of modern evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin, speculated in one of his letters that life came about when “in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and salts, light, heat, electricity, etc, a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes”. If there is not a restaurant at the end of the universe, as depicted in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then it would appear that there is at least a bar at the end of the Milky Way.
The glycine was discovered yesterday and is the first sub-unit of protein, the main stuff of life, to have been detected in outer space. At the beginning of this year, it appeared that the warm gas near the tar-forming region of the Orion Nebula acts as a cosmic cocktail shaker – astronomers from NASA Ames Research Center and from Manchester University discovered both grain and wood alcohol there.

Complex chemistry in the inky void of interstellar space is not new – since the discovery of ammonia in space in 1968, more than 100 moderately complex molecules have been detected. Jupiter will be just south of the Moon, against the background of the stars forming the constellations of the spring night sky – Leo, Gemini, Virgo. But there is, quite literally, more up there than meets the eye. It was revealed yesterday that American astronomers have detected one of the fundamental buildings blocks of organic life, an amino acid called glycine, in the giant molecular cloud near the centre of our galaxy, in the constellation of Sagittarius. If the sky is clear tonight, look up and you will see Mars, the red planet, standing high in the south at nightfall. That’s Defeat in Europe Day, the festivity peculiar to Germany! If you want to get away from VE Day, book a DE Day trip now, and guarantee freedom from street parties, Vera Lynn records, Union Jacks etc… Strap on your virtual reality helmet and you get the impression that you are sitting on a small camp stool, freezing cold, starving, with just half a cup of cocoa left in your flask and only the Big Issue to read.Booking Now: DE Day.

There are, believe it or not, people who find queuing for an opera ticket more exciting than going to the opera, and for them the Luciano Pavarotti Virtual Reality Queuing Experience is a must. See the workers actually chipping the extra figure 1s into the code base! Watch the £s mount up as unwary callers misdial and BT managers rub their hands in glee! See the grateful cheques arrive from business-card manufacturers, all making a fortune from people who have to reprint their cards with the new code! Watch the woman who says, smugly and irritatingly (and inaccurately), into your ear: “The person you are calling knows you are waiting…” Get your hands round the neck of the woman who says, smugly and irritatingly: “The person you are calling knows you are waiting…”, and strangle the living daylights out of her.The Luciano Pavarotti Virtual Reality Queuing ExperienceProbably only for the opera queuing addict. The first of these modern museums to be installed was the National Motorway Cones Hall, which opened last Easter and now attracts a staggering 10,000 visitors a day.Special Code Change Tour of British Telecom Nerve CentreToday, the day after all British phone codes have changed again for the last time until the next time, you have a chance to look around the place where it all happens. Other outlets run by the Instant Heritage Group include Space Invaders Hall in Stoke, the Alternative Comedy Hall of Fame in Newcastle, the Punk Memorial Palace in Streatham and the Indoor Rave Centre at Shepton Mallet. All losing entrants will get a consolation prize in the shape of a chance to buy some of British Rail, but please PLEASE hurry, as they can’t sell any of it at the moment…National Karaoke Museum, BrentfordThis is a brand-new museum opened by the Instant Heritage Group, a new but rapidly expanding firm which aims to commemorate the achievements of the 1980s before they become forgotten or too expensive to recreate.