NASA gets best look yet at the "deepest, coldest ices" in space that create stars, planets and the "building blocks of life" - CBS News

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"An international team of astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has obtained an in-depth inventory of the deepest, coldest ices measured to date in a molecular cloud," NASA said in a news release on Monday. " ... This is the most comprehensive census to date of the icy ingredients available to make future generations of stars and planets, before they are heated during the formation of young stars.",
Using the telescope, astronomers were able to take a deeper look at the "frozen forms" of various molecules, including carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, methane and methanol. Those molecules contain the essential elements – mostly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur – that are needed to form planets and stars. Those elements, plus phosphorus, are essential for living organisms. ,
They also found more complex molecules deep in molecular clouds for the first time ever, a discovery that suggests many stars and planets in the particular cloud studied could inherit advanced molecules. It also suggests that this is a common occurrence after stars are formed that extends beyond Earth's own solar system.,
"This is just the first in a series of spectral snapshots that we will obtain to see how the ices evolve from their initial synthesis to the comet-forming regions of protoplanetary disks," said McClure. "This will tell us which mixture of ices — and therefore which elements — can eventually be delivered to the surfaces of terrestrial exoplanets or incorporated into the atmospheres of giant gas or ice planets."
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