L. Kolesniková, B. Tercero, J. Cernicharo, J. L. Alonso, A. M. Daly, B. P. Gordon, and S. T. Shipman,
reported on the
Spectroscopic Characterization and Detection of Ethyl Mercaptan in Orion
Astrophys. J. 784, Art. No. L7 (2014).
A plethora of features identified in a molecular line survey of Orion KL in the 3, 2, and 1.3 mm range with the IRAM 30 m radiotelescope were ascribed to the lower energy gauche conformer. However, the number of isolated transitions assigned at least mainly to g-C₂H₅SH is fairly small, the overwhelming majority of the lines are heavily blended and often close to the confusion limit. In addition, a large fraction of the emission features remains at least partially unassigned. Moreover, the deduced column density compared to that of CH₃SH as well as that of C₂H₅OH are surprisingly high. Therefore, we recommend to view the detection with some caution.

H. S. P. Müller, A. Belloche, L.-H. Xu, R. M. Lees, R. T. Garrod, A. Walters, J. van Wijngaarden, F. Lewen, S. Schlemmer, and K. M. Menten,
reported on
Exploring molecular complexity with ALMA (EMoCA): Alkanethiols and alkanols in Sagittarius B2(N2)
Astron. Astrophys. 587, Art. No. A92 (2016).
A line survey of Sgr B2(N) was carried out with ALMA at 3 mm. Stringent upper limits were derived to the column density of ethanethiol with ratios CH₃SH/C₂H₅SH and C₂H₅OH/C₂H₅SH of larger than about 21 and 125, respectively. However, these findings, as well as concurrently presented chemical modeling do not permit a strict statement concerning the above report on ethanethiol in Orion KL.
The authors noted, however, that one of the few clearer lines attributed to ethanethiol leaves only room for a column density of zero in Orion KL. Also, this line may explain that the reported column density is compatible with zero within two times the uncertainty. Thus, better observational results are needed before ethanethiol may be viewed as unambiguously detected species.

L. F. Rodríguez-Almeida, I. Jiménez-Serra, V. M. Rivilla, J. Martín-Pintado, S. Zeng, B. Tercero, P. de Vicente, Laura Colzi, F. Rico-Villas, S. Martín, and M. A. Requena-Torres
reported meanwhile on
Thiols in the Interstellar Medium: First Detection of HC(O)SH and Confirmation of C₂H₅SH
Astrophys. J. Lett. 912 (2021), Art. No. L11.
This is the first unumbiguous detection of ethanethiol in the ISM. Ten lines of the lower-lying gauche conformer with 3 ≤ J ≤ 10 and K_a ≤ 3 were reported and shown, of which six were unblended or marginally blended, four lines were more blended. The observations were part of an unbiased molecular line survey of the quiescent giant molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027, about 1' north-east of Sagittarius B2(N), carried out with the Yebes 40 m dish at 7 mm and with the IRAM 30 m dish at 3 mm. All but one of the blended lines were modeled quite well employing an LTE fit with T_rot ≈ 10 K. The column density of methanethiol is a factor of ∼16 higher, that of ethanol a factor of ∼15 higher.

Contributor(s): H. S. P. Müller; 06, 2014; 07, 2016; 05, 2021