M. Sanz-Novo, V. M. Rivilla, H. S. P. Müller, I. Jiménez-Serra, J. Martín-Pintado, L. Colzi, S. Zeng, A. Megías, Á. López-Gallifa, A. Martínez-Henares, B. Tercero, P. de Vicente, D. San Andrés, S. Martín, and M. A. Requena-Torres
announced the
Discovery of Thionylimide, HNSO, in Space: The first N-, S-, and O-bearing Interstellar Molecule
Astrophys. J. Lett. 965, Art. No. L26 (2024).
HNSO was detected in the course of a molecular line survey of the Galactic Center molecular cloud G+0.693–0.027 employing the Yebes 40 m and IRAM 30 m radio telecopes. The a-type transitions cover 34 to 171 GHz with 1 ≤ J ≤ 10 and K_a ≤ 2. Six lines were deemed to be unblended, and 12 more were only slightly blended. An excitation temperature of ~12 K was derived. The molecule is slightly more abundant than the somewhat related HNCS molecule. SO and SO₂ are more abundant by factors of ~38 and ~5, respectively, while NS is ~3.5 times more abundant. The higher energy isomer HSNO was not detected.

Contributor(s): H. S. P. Müller; 04, 2024