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James Webb’s conquests in space continue… Observing the first chemical origins of life | science and technology

The James Webb super space telescope was able to enter the depths of ice in space, and its penetration into the darkest and coldest regions of space, in the search for life outside the planet, and an attempt to obtain chemical evidence that could be involved in the formation of the planet, according to a report published by the website. British BBC.

Webb was able to determine methane, sulfur, nitrogen and ethanol, 500 light-years from Earth. Scientists believe that these particles are a typical result of star formation, rather than a unique feature of our solar system. Webb was able to send back an unprecedented image of the ice cloud, the coldest ice ever measured, reaching -505 degrees Fahrenheit, and this data will allow scientists to see how habitable the world is.

And Webb’s published data proved that molecules more complex than methanol can form in the icy depths of such clouds, which was published by the official “Webb Telescope” account on Twitter. have been observed before.

“It’s kind of like a shadow puppet,” said Dr. Melissa McClure, a doctor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “You have a kind of shape that creates a shadow, the ice absorbs a certain wavelength of light, and you add all of that up in a spectrum to figure out the chemical species.” you have.”

This discovery helps scientists in their continuous attempts to find out where the chemistry of life came from, and how the universe got to what it is now. “Although we have discovered more ice than ever before, the amount of light elements such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen present within it is much less than we expect,” said Dr Helen Fraser, from the Open University in Britain.

“This is exciting for astronomers, because it means there’s something we don’t fully understand yet about interstellar chemistry, and that prompts us to experiment in the lab, not just keep observing,” she added.

This work is carried out mainly on the “James Webb” telescope, and with the help of the near-infrared telescope, which can see many compounds, other than water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and methane… And the biggest discovery is in the use of James Webb, that scientists They were able to see these components in a solid state, like ice, and not just in the form of gases as was the case previously.

“These comets will have a large chemical stock inside them, and it is possible that they will bombard the planets with this stock, and early in their history,” says Martin McCostra, a professor at Britain’s Heriot University.

It is worth noting that the James Webb Space Telescope is a joint effort of the US, European and Canadian space agencies.

And the James Webb telescope was able, during the past year, to capture pictures of the “pillars of creation” that shook the scientific community, which are cold and dense clouds of hydrogen gas and dust in a group of stars, about 6,500 light-years away from Earth. Other telescopes had been able to photograph this scene in the past, during the years 1995 and 2014, but what James Webb achieved is that he gave scientists another perspective.

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