A new cosmic discovery spotted by telescope scientistsJames Webb“A few hundred light-years from Earth, in a cloud.”ChamaeleonThe molecular or “chameleon cloud,” which is one of the cold, dark regions of the universe.
The Chameleon Cloud is a hazy stellar nursery and is one of the coldest and darkest regions known to date, often in the shadiest corners of space..
The new discovery was announced by scientists from the James Webb Telescope, via a magazine Natureas they spotted an amazing group of icy particles hidden inside the cloud, and described them as not just ancient particles, but that they will one day merge into the next generation of stars and planets, and perhaps this will lead to the emergence of life there.
components of life
According to what the magazine published, the molecules in the cloud not only contain structural ice pieces such as frozen carbon dioxide, ammonia and water, but scientists have discovered that they contain evidence of what are known as “prebiotic molecules” in the cloud, indicating the presence of specific chemicals known to enhance The correct conditions for the components of life.
“Our identification of complex organic molecules, such as methanol and potential ethanol, also indicates that many star systems and planets that develop in this cloud will inherit molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state,” the scientists said in a statement.
They added: “This may mean that the presence of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems It is a common result of star formation, not a unique feature of our solar system.”
Simply put, maybe humans are not terrestrial plants and microbes so distinct from the rest of the universe, and that could be evidence that humans are not alone in the universe because the ingredients for life are extraordinarily common byproducts of baby stars growing up in other cosmic systems..
Melissa McClure, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory and lead author of the research paper on the discovery, said that this does not mean that scientists have found evidence of aliens or something like that, because it is a mystery what will happen to these cloud-carried particles over time, but the discovery It opens the discussion about the presence of life in other solar systems.
She adds: These observations open a new window on the formation pathways of the simple and complex molecules needed to make molecules building blocks for life.
No sugar or spice, but everything ice
In this molecular cloud (a birthplace of stars & planets), Webb scientists found a variety of icy ingredients. These frozen molecules, like carbon dioxide and methane, could go on to become building blocks of life. https://t.co/1txG9rE0rc pic.twitter.com/zfzAJAiwst— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 23, 2023
Chameleon Cloud Tracking
The James Webb Telescope works, using gold-plated mirrors and high-tech instruments to detect specific wavelengths of light that lie in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum..
This machine was literally built to decode all the infrared light in deep space and turn it into something that our minds and our technology could comprehend, revealing the cosmic secrets hidden from our eyes..
The telescope captured a range of infrared wavelengths associated with icy particles hidden within the haze in the Chameleon cloud, and converted them into information understandable by the team of scientists who run the scope..
effect of light emitted from a star sort of in the background of the cloud on the telescope’s lenses, which is a million miles away from our planet, and more specifically, as the wavelengths passed through the cloud itself, they came into contact with all those icy particles floating in the inside of the cloud
Thus, those icy particles absorbed some of the starlight, leaving a kind of trace or what is scientifically called “absorption line fingerprints”, which, by analyzing them, helps to deduce anything about the identification of icy particles, of course..
“We simply would not have been able to observe these ices without Webb,” Klaus Pontopidan, Webb’s project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, who was involved in this research, said in a statement.“.
He continued: “In very cold and dense regions, much of the light from the background star is blocked, and Webb’s remarkable sensitivity was necessary to detect starlight and thus identify ice in the molecular cloud.”.”
“Pillars of Creation” .. the latest cosmic scene of the “James Webb” telescope#Today pic.twitter.com/sF8YOjxdZtToday newspaper (@alyaum) October 20, 2022
