M. Rey-Montejo, I. Jiménez-Serra, J. Martín-Pintado, V. M. Rivilla, A. Megías, D. San Andrés, M. Sanz-Novo, L. Colzi, S. Zeng, Á. López-Gallifa, A. Martínez-Henares, S. Martín, B. Tercero, P. de Vicente6, and M. Requena-Torres
announced the
Discovery of MgS and NaS in the Interstellar Medium and Tentative Detection of CaO
Astrophys. J. 975, Art. No. 174 (2024).
The search for metal-containing molecules was carried out in two molecular line surveys 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; 11, 2024