World

Ingredients For Life Discovered In Far Reaches Of Space

Shutterstock/MolecularCloud

Kay Smythe News and Commentary Writer
Font Size:

A study published in March described how the ingredients for life were discovered in a star cluster some 1,000 light-years from Earth.

Prebiotic molecules were uncovered in a star cluster inside the Perseus Molecular Cloud named IC 348, according to the study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The “soup” of molecules, as described by Space, contain the essential compounds for life, particularly the amino acids that form the basis of genetic material.

“It is an extraordinary laboratory of organic chemistry,” study co-author Susana Iglesias-Groth noted in a statement. “These are complex molecules of pure carbon which often occur as building blocks for the key molecules of life.”

The star cluster is fairly young by geological standards, at just two to three million years old and some 500-light-years wide. Our closest star, the sun, is some 4.6 billion years old, Space noted for comparison.

Within these young stars and clusters, protoplanetary disks force clumps of material to collapse under gravitational pull, and subsequently form planets, moons, asteroids, and other cosmic structures. Our own immediate solar system once formed under a similar process.

Hydrogen (H2), hydroxyl (OH), water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and ammonia (NH3) and several carbon-based molecules were uncovered within the cluster. “IC 348 seems to be very rich and diverse in its molecular content,” Inglesias-Groth continued. “The novelty is that we see the molecules in the diffuse gas from which stars and protoplanetary disks are forming.” (RELATED: Earth Is Speeding Up As We Hurtle Through Space. Here’s What We Know So Far)

The observations that led to the discovery of IC 348 were made using the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, Space noted. Follow-up studies using the James Webb Telescope are hoped to further explain how these clusters of life-forming molecules interact and do other cool space stuff.