James Webb finds the building blocks of life in the dark molecular cloud

that James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) he have Components of the Chameleon I molecular cloud. check up. the 500 light years away so-called far dark cloud So dark that all the light is absorbed from the objects behind it. Because of this, the larger dark clouds found in the bright Milky Way can be seen with the naked eye.

The cloud with a temperature of about -263 degrees Perishing. There are researchers who Bern University and Leiden University in the Netherlands now The coldest ice Proof that it has ever been measured.

I found the “elements of life”

composition includes The basic building blocks of life: water, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. You will do that Shones summary. Amino acids could be made up of this, “thus, so to speak, the ingredients of life,” he says Maria DrozdovskayaStudy co-author, in the current situation. The researchers also found carbon monoxide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and methanol.

These ingredients can be stored in newly emerging planets and thus generate life. In Chameleon I, dozens of new stars are currently forming, right in the center of the cloud. It is particularly dark and cold there. with web tools Merry And NIR The team was able to investigate this area.

Riddles about new stars

However, research also poses new mysteries. Because their measurements showed that with respect to cloud density, many CHONS occur less frequently. “We were not only able to measure the occurrence of these substances, but also Frequency of some of the elements found in the ice compounds,” says Drozdovskaya. The team therefore suspects that some of the molecules are not enriched in the ice, but in rock dust particles included.

This may indicate that infant stars there are already equipped with these particles. “Existence Prebiotic molecules in planetary systems It could be a common result of star formation rather than just a unique feature of our own Solar System“, Says Melissa McClure, lead author of the study. The results were in the nature of the journal released.