Leiden astronomers find building blocks for life in the darkest spots of star-forming cloud
An international team led by Leiden astronomers has discovered diverse ices in the darkest, coldest regions of a molecular cloud. To do so, they used the James Webb Space Telescope. This discovery allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets, while opening a new window on the origin of more complex molecules that are the first step in the creation of the building blocks of life.
Read more in the press release from ESA/Webb.
Scientific paper
An Ice Age JWST inventory of dense molecular cloud ices. Door Melissa McClure et al. In: Nature Astronomy, 23 januari 2023. Origineel: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01875-w