JWST Discovers Basic Building Blocks of Life in the Darkest Cosmic Depths: ScienceAlert

The JWST’s unparalleled ability to peer into the shrouded minds of distant clouds has revealed elements of biochemistry in the coldest and darkest places we’ve ever seen.

In a molecular cloud called Chamaeleon I, more than 500 light-years away from Earth, telescope data revealed the presence of frozen carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur. The mountains known collectively as CHONS.

“These elements are important building blocks of prebiotic molecules, like simple amino acids, and thus the building blocks of life,” says astronomer Maria Drozdovskaya of the University of Bern, Germany.

Additionally, an international team of researchers led by astronomer Melissa McClure at Leiden University in the Netherlands has identified frozen forms of more complex molecules such as water, methane, ammonia, carbonyl sulfide and the organic molecule methanol.

The cold, dense clumps of molecular clouds are where stars and planets are born. Scientists believe that CHONS and other molecules were present in the molecular cloud that gave birth to the Sun, some of which were later transported to Earth through icy comets and asteroid impacts.

Elements and molecules detected in Chameleon I drift quietly for now, but one day they may be caught up in planetary formation and deliver the ingredients necessary for the emergence of life to new baby planets.

Leiden Observatory astronomer Will Rocha said: “Our identification of complex organic molecules such as methanol and ethanol also suggests that many stellar and planetary systems developing in these special clouds will inherit molecules in a significantly advanced chemical state. suggests,” he explained.

“This could mean that the presence of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a common consequence of star formation rather than a unique feature of our solar system.”

Chameleon I is a cold, dense, dark clump of dust and ice that makes up one of the closest active star-forming regions to Earth. So a census of its composition could tell us quite a bit about the ingredients that go into star and planet formation, and contribute to our understanding of how these ingredients are incorporated into newly forming worlds.

With powerful infrared detection, the JWST can see through dense dust with greater clarity and detail than any telescope that has come before. That’s because the infrared wavelengths of light don’t scatter dust particles the way shorter wavelengths do. That means instruments like the JWST can see through dust more effectively than optical instruments like the Hubble.

To determine the chemical composition of dust in Chamaeleon I, scientists rely on absorption signals. Starlight traveling through clouds can be absorbed by elements and molecules within them. Different chemicals absorb different wavelengths. As the spectrum of the outgoing light is collected, these absorbed wavelengths become darker. Scientists can then analyze these absorption lines to determine which elements are present.

The JWST took a deeper look than we’ve seen so far for the constituent census of Chamaeleon I. It found grains of silicate dust, the aforementioned CHONS and other molecules, and ice colder than previously measured in space at about -263°C (-441°F).

And they found that the amount of CHONS was less than expected, containing only about 1% of the expected sulfur for the density of the cloud. This suggests that the remaining material may be trapped in unmeasurable places, for example inside rocks and other minerals.

Without more information, it’s hard to measure at this point, so what the team wants is more information. They hope to obtain more observations that will help map the evolution of these ices, from coating dust grains in molecular clouds to incorporating into comets and possibly seeding planets.

“This is just the first of a series of spectral snapshots we’ll be taking to see how the ice evolves from its initial synthesis into the comet-forming region of the protoplanetary disk,” said McClure.

“This will tell us which icy mixtures and therefore which elements may eventually pass to the surface of terrestrial exoplanets or be incorporated into the atmospheres of giant gas or icy planets.”

This study natural astronomy.

And here you can download a desktop size version of JWST’s Chameleon I image.