Unusual particles track 444 light-years from Earth

This discovery was made by scientists from the Dutch Leiden Observatory Use the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory In Chile, the world’s largest radio interferometer. Details are described in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Thanks to these results, we can learn more about the origin of life on our planet, and thus better understand the possibilities for life in other planetary systems. It’s very exciting to see how these discoveries fit into the bigger picture, said Nasanti Pronkin, a graduate student at the Leiden Observatory.

dimethyl ether It is an organic molecule commonly found in star-forming clouds, but not yet It was discovered in a protoplanetary disk. Methyl formate, the building block for larger organic molecules, is also likely.

“It’s really exciting that we finally found these larger particles in the disks. For some time we thought it might be impossible to notice them,” said Alice Booth of Leiden Observatory, a co-author on the study.

Dimethyl ether has been detected in the protoplanetary disk About the young star Oph-IRS 48It is located in the constellation Ophiuchus and is It is 444 light years away from us. It is the subject of a lot of research by scientists because it has an asymmetrical “dust trap” in the shape of cashews. This region may have formed as a result of the birth of a new planet or a small companion star. It contains a large number of dust grains with a diameter of several millimeters that can coalesce and transform into kilometer-sized objects such as comets, asteroids, and even planets.

Complex organic molecules such as dimethyl ether form in star-forming clouds before the stars themselves form. It was recently confirmed Dust Trap in Oph-IRS 48 It is an ice storage in which complex molecules can hide.

What makes it even more exciting is the fact that we now know that these larger complex particles are available to planets forming in the disk. Alice Booth added that this was not previously known because these particles are hidden in ice in most systems.

By studying these molecules, scientists can better understand how to do this Prebiotic particles find their way to planets (eg down to earth). Observations of Oph-IRS 48 will continue with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (ELT), which is due to go live later this decade.

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