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High in spirits!

LARGE quantities of alcohol - ethanol - as consumed by earthlings have been recently found in abundance in the spatial region. Ethanol was discovered by two radio astronomers Geoff Macdonald and Rolf Habing from the Kent University in Canterbury, UK, close to a newly formed star known as G34.3+1.15.

The discovery came about with the aid of the 15 m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, while undertaking a routine frequency survey. Reportedly, 14 spectral lines - beam of electromagnetic radiation with a narrow wavelength range - of the ethyl alcohol molecule were found, indicating large reserves. The new find is not the only one; ethyl alcohol was first found in space in i975. Surveys over the past two years have revealed the existence of nearly 80 different molecular species in dusty clouds of interstellar space often near very young stars and stars still being formed.

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