(ORDO NEWS) — Analyzing data transmitted by NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope , an international team of researchers has discovered ice lurking in the Chameleon I (Cha I) molecular cloud, a huge interstellar structure about 500 light-years from Earth that will one day form stars and planets.
In addition to water ice, scientists have found frozen ammonia, methane, methanol and carbonyl sulfide.
The study of the “ice menagerie” in this region of outer space will help astronomers better understand the mechanisms of planet formation and the origin of life.
In the ice of the molecular cloud were found: nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur and carbon. These elements form the basis of molecules such as sugars, alcohols, and simple amino acids, the building blocks of life.
In addition, they are also the main components of planetary atmospheres, and together they are referred to by the acronym “CHONS”.
These ices will eventually melt as star formation flourishes in the molecular clouds . But thanks to James Webb, researchers were able to see them before they were sublimated.
“The results of our study provide insight into the initial, little-understood chemical step in the formation of ice on interstellar dust particles that coalesce into centimeter-sized pebbles that form planets in the circumstellar disk,” said Melissa McClure, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory in New York and lead author of the study.
“These observations provide an improved understanding of the pathways for the formation of simple and complex molecules needed to form the building blocks of life.”
Methanol (methyl alcohol), found in the molecular cloud, is considered the simplest complex organic molecule, consisting of six atoms. Researchers have data indicating the presence of larger complex molecules, but, unfortunately, they have not yet been identified.
“The detection of complex organic molecules, such as methanol and possibly ethanol, suggests that many of the star and planetary systems developing in this particular cloud [Chameleon I] will inherit molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state,” added Will Rocha, an astronomer at Leiden observatory and co-author of the study.
“This could mean that the presence of precursors of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a normal result of star formation, rather than a unique feature of our own solar system.”
The results presented in this study also show more sulfur than was found in all previous observations, but still less than expected for a cloud of this size. Scientists suggest that sulfur and other CHONS elements can be trapped not only in ice, but also in soot and rocks, and probably different proportions are responsible for the formation of different planets.
“The fact that we didn’t see all of the CHONS elements that we expected to find may indicate that they are trapped in rocky or sooty materials whose contents we cannot verify,” McClure explained.
“This [different proportions of CHONS] could provide more diversity in the composition of the terrestrial planets.”
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