Elusive molecule, first in Universe, detected in space

phys.org

51 pointsdnetesn7 comments

Why HeH+? What about good ol' H2?

My question as well. I wonder if they're not counting H2 because it's only one element.

Edit: check out the replies to this coming in another thread on the story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19693647

Apparently the universe was too hot for electrons to combine with atomic nuclei at first, so everything was a plasma.

As it cooled, He grabbed up electrons first, forming the first neutral atoms while H+ was still a plasma.

So there was a lot of He and H+ bouncing around at high temperature, allowing the first molecules to form as [He-H]+.

Yep. He has a higher ionization energy than H.

I find somewhat interesting the contrast of what the HN community consider being worth to mention. Like between manned moon base plans and a cosmology related discovery we have the rumor of hiding Instagram likes.

Hacker News is ostensibly focused on programmers building cool stuff.

A famous tech company doing something fairly minor will therefore compete with big news from a branch of natural science.

Many people are able to be interested in more than one thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com