Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

In 2004, a team of scientists discovered hydrocarbons called anthracene and pyrene in an amazing structure called the Red Rectangle!

Here two stars 2300 light years from us are spinning around each other while pumping out a huge torus of icy dust grains and hydrocarbon molecules. It’s not really shaped like a rectangle or X—it just looks that way from here. The whole scene is about one third of a light year across.

This was first time such complex molecules had been found in space:

• Uma P. Vi...