The James Webb Space Telescope peered into a molecular cloud 630 light-years from Earth and discovered ice made up of different elements.
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Molecular clouds are interstellar collections of gas and dust in which hydrogen and carbon monoxide molecules can form. Dense clusters within these clouds can collapse and form young stars called protostars.
The Webb telescope focused on the dark molecular cloud Chamaeleon I, which appears blue in the new image. A young protostar called Ced 110 IRS 4 glows orange at left.
The renowned journal Nature Astronomy published a study including a picture on Monday.
Other orange dots, representing background starlight, break through the cloud.
Starlight has helped astronomers identify the diversity of frozen molecules in the dark Chamaeleon I molecular cloud that forms dozens of young stars.
The Webb telescope observes the universe through infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. Infrared light can reveal previously hidden aspects of the cosmos, penetrating dense clumps of gas and dust that would otherwise obscure the view.
“Our results provide insight into the initial, dark chemical stage of ice formation on interstellar dust grains, which become the centimeter-sized pebbles that form planets,” said the study’s lead author, Melissa McClure, an astronomer and assistant professor at the Leiden Observatory, in a statement in the Netherlands.
“These observations open a new window on the pathways of formation of the simple and complex molecules needed to make the building blocks of life,” she adds.
In addition to simple molecules, researchers have seen evidence of more complex molecules.
“Our identification of complex organic molecules such as methanol and possibly ethanol also suggests that the many stellar and planetary systems evolving in this particular cloud will inherit molecules at a fairly advanced chemical state,” the agency said in a statement. Author Will Rocha, astronomer and postdoctoral fellow at the Leiden Observatory.
“This could mean that the presence of precursors of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a common result of star formation rather than a unique feature of our own solar system,” he added.
Astronomers used starlight filtered through the cloud to look for chemical fingerprints and identify the elements.
“Without Webb, we just couldn’t have observed these ice sheets,” study co-author Klaus Pontoppidan, a Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement.