JWST finds Life’s Elemental building blocks in the depths of Darkest Space

JWST’s unique ability to peer into the hearts of distant clouds has revealed biochemical elements in the coldest and darkest place we have yet seen.

In a molecular cloud called Chamaeleon 1, located 500 light years from Earth, a given telescope shows the presence of frozen carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur, vital elements for the formation of atmospheres and molecules such as amino acids, commonly known as CHONS.

“These elements are important prebiotic molecules like simple amino acids – and thus the ingredients of life, so to speak,” says astronomer Maria Drozdovskaya of the University of Bern in Germany.

In addition, an international team of astronomers led by Melissa McClure of the University of Leiden in Belgium has also identified frozen forms of complex molecules, such as water, methane, ammonia, carbonyl sulfide, and organic methanol.

The cool, dense ferns in the molecular clouds are where stars and their 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 delivered to Earth by icy comets and asteroid impacts.

Although the elements and molecules discovered in Chamaeleon I are currently floating silently, one day, they may be involved in planet formation, providing the necessary ingredients for the emergence of life on new baby planets.

“Our identification of complex organic molecules, such as methanol and potentially ethanol, also suggests that many star and planetary systems developing in this particular cloud will possess molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state,” explains astronomer Will Rocha of the Leiden Observatory.

“This may indicate that the presence of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a common event of star formation rather than unique to the solar system.”

Chamaeleon 1 is a cold and dense, dark conglomerate of dust and ice that forms one of the nearest active interstellar regions to Earth. Therefore, an assessment of their composition can tell us little about the ingredients of star and planet formation and to understand how these ingredients are incorporated into forming new worlds.

JWST, with its more powerful infrared-detection capabilities, can see through dense dust more clearly and distinctly than any telescope before it. The fact that the infrared wavelengths of light do not scatter dust particles as they do at shorter wavelengths means that instruments like JWST can see through dust better than optical instruments like Hubble.

To determine the chemical composition of the dust in Chameleon 1, scientists rely on absorption signatures. A star passing through a cloud can be absorbed by the elements and molecules there. Different economies attract different equalities. When the spectrum of emerging light is collected, these absorbed wavelengths are darker. Scientists can then analyze these absorption lines to determine what elements are present.

JWST took a deeper look into Chameleon 1 to assess its composition than we’ve seen before. It found silicate dust grains, the aforementioned CHONS and other molecules, and ice colder than previously measured in space, at about -263 degrees Celsius (-441 degrees Fahrenheit).

And because of the density of the fog, they found the amount of CHONS less than expected, only about 1 percent of the expected sulfur. This suggests that the rest of the material can be locked up in places where it can be measured – inside rocks and other minerals, for example.

Without information, this is difficult to assess, so get more information than the customer intends to get. They hope to obtain more observations that will help to describe the evolution of these ices, preventing dusty molecular grains from forming clouds for incorporation into comets and perhaps even seed planets.

“This is the first in a series of spongy spectra that we have developed as faults evolve from initial synthesis to regions of protoplanetary disks forming comets,” McClure says.

“This will tell us what composition of gravels – and therefore what elements – may eventually be delivered to the surfaces of terrestrial exoplanets or incorporated into the atmospheres of gas giant or ice planets.”

The research was published in Nature Astronomy.

And you can download full-size JWST image versions of Chameleon 1 here.