Ethanolamine (NH₂CH₂CH₂OH) was detected toward the galactic center source G+0.693–0.027 by Rivilla and co-workers, as reported in 2021 in Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The detection utilized the IRAM 30m telescope as well as the Yebes 40m telescope. Of 45 rotational transitions that fall with the wavelenth range of the observations that have sufficient brightness to be detectable at 10-15 K, 14 were either unblended or slightly blending with transitions due to other other molecules and serve to secure the identification. Very recently, ethanolamine has also been detected toward the newly identified, molecule-rich galactic center cloud G+0.633–0.0604, providing ample confirmation for ethanolamine.

Ethanolamine, or more properly monoethanolamine, is well-known in terrestrial industrial chemistry, where it represents about 40% of the entire $4 billion USD global market of mono-, di-, and triethanolamine compounds. (Mono)ethanolamine also plays an important role in biochemistry, where it is the head group (as Rivilla and co-workers note in their title) of phospholipids that are found in all cells and make up many cell membranes. Click here to see a molecular model of a particular phospholipid that shows how ethanolamine is connected to the other parts of the molecule (the webpahe even lets you highlight the hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts of the molecule).