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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed and measured the coldest ice in the deepest reaches of interstellar molecular clouds. Photo/UKRI/ESA/WEBB
According to new research published January 23, 2023 in the journal Nature Astronomy, molecular clouds, consist of frozen molecules, gas and dust particles. These particles serve as birthplaces for stars and planets, including habitable planets, such as Earth.
In this new study, a team of scientists used JWST’s infrared camera to investigate a molecular cloud called Chameleon I, which is about 500 light years from Earth. Inside the dark, cold clouds, the team identified frozen molecules such as carbonyl sulfur, ammonia, methane, methanol and others.
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These molecules will one day become part of the hot core of a growing star, and possibly part of a future exoplanet. They also hold the building blocks of habitable worlds, such as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulphur, the molecular mixture known as COHNS.
“Our results provide insight into the early, dark chemical stages of ice forming in interstellar dust grains that will grow into the centimeter-sized pebbles from which planets form,” said Melissa McClure, astronomer at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. 25/1/2023).
Stars and planets form inside molecular clouds like Chameleon I. Over millions of years, gas, ice and dust collapse into ever more massive structures. Some of these structures heat up to become the young star’s core.
As stars grow, they sweep away more matter and get hotter. Once a star forms, the remaining gas and dust around it forms a disk. Again, this matter started colliding, sticking together and eventually forming a larger body.
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One day, this blob could become a planet. Even livable ones like ours. “This observation opens a new window on the pathways for the formation of the simple and complex molecules necessary to make the building blocks of life,” said McClure.
