Talk:List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20040915075620/http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org:80/cgi/content/full/2000/627/4 to http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2000/627/4

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 15:54, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * That's clearly not an improvement, as the archived page just shows a paywall error rather than the content of the article. However I've managed to track down a working link and will update the page. Modest Genius talk 23:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Molecules or compounds in title?
I think that the name of this article should have compounds or substances instead of molecules.--5.2.200.163 (talk) 14:38, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Why? It doesn't include solid-state compounds, or all chemical species such as atomic ions. "Molecules" appears to be correct to me. Modest Genius talk 15:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The current title is fair enough, everything here is a molecule in the gaseous state. "Substances" may have to include cosmic rays, dark matter and interstellar dust as well. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Then it should be changed to List of gaseous substances in interstellar and.... The word molecule underlines the microscopic level instead of the macroscopic level of substances.--5.2.200.163 (talk) 11:52, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, no, it is correct as it is. BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Count titles in common use - or not?
Diatomic and Triatomic are also taken from greek. It makes absolutely no sense to keep those but call all the ones 4+ Four atoms, Five atoms, Six atoms etc. instead of Tetratomic/Quadratomic, Pentatomic, Hexatomic, etc. Can someone tell me why? It makes no sense to stop at triatomic and not continue the pattern. 24.150.136.68 (talk) 00:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Diatomic and triatomic are in common use. Those others are not, and I suspect a writer here is using Wikipedia to promote their use. The point is not whether the terms are from Greek, but that they are not used as such in English much. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ - FWIW - yes - agreed - common use is preferred - hope this helps - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 02:26, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We certainly shouldn't use the Greek forms for four or more atoms, which very few readers would understand. Diatomic and triatomic are sufficiently common that it seems fine to use them, but I'm not opposed to 'two atoms' and 'three atoms' either. Modest Genius talk 20:26, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Chemical nomenclature
Papers can also contain errors - linear C3H can be called propynylidyne, but in chemical nomenclature simply adding cyclo in the begining to name a cyclic isomer and calling it a deal is not OK. If authors of a paper made an arbitrary name like "housane" then OK, but making a misleading name - cyclopropynylidyne would be correct for C3 molecule - is not acceptable. It could be mentioned in the table as a name which is used, but should be highlighted as incorrect. In general, this practice with adding just the names from papers is unacceptable, especially in a featured article. There is something called IUPAC, isn't there? All names should be checked and the ones like "heptatrienyl radical" for C7H (this one is much worse) either eliminated altogether, or marked as wrong if they are in actual use (not just used in single paper). Mithoron (talk) 21:03, 29 October 2020 (UTC)


 * This is an encyclopaedia, not a chemistry textbook. We report what reliable sources are saying, we don't correct them just because we think they made a mistake (see WP:VNT). If reliable astrochemistry sources are using name X, then name X is what we should report in this article, regardless of whether it meets IUPAC rules. This article has followed the original detection paper for convenience and ease of verification; if there are specific examples where the astrochemistry literature has switched to a more standard name in subsequent papers I agree it should be changed (and an additional reference added for the new name). We shouldn't rename entries just because you dislike the one used in the discovery paper. Modest Genius talk 11:31, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Loads of prebiotic molecules found in Milky Way?
FWIW - (For being aware only of newly published relevant studies - not necessarily to incorporate into the main article) - On 8 July 2022, astronomers reported the discovery of massive amounts of prebiotic molecules, including for RNA, in the galactic center of the Milky Way Galaxy. - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 13:09, 10 July 2022 (UTC) Drbogdan (talk) 13:09, 10 July 2022 (UTC)


 * These seem to all be molecules that were already known in the ISM and are already listed in our table. The only complication is that they report "Cyanopropyne (CH3CCCN)" while our table reflects the previous publication that called it Methylcyanoacetylene (H3CC2CN); as far as I can see those are the same molecule. This paper has found a combination of nitriles in the same molecular cloud, so can do some more astrochemical modelling, but they're not new interstellar molecules. Modest Genius talk 12:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)