James Webb discovered the ingredients of life where no one would ever look

A few hundred light-years from Earth, in the region known as the Chameleon Cloud (we can see it in the header image), scientists working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have announced that they have discovered a vast amount of icy molecules hidden.

If the universe is the coldest and darkest place we know, this cloud of stars is a worthy representative and is considered one of the coldest and darkest known so far. But as the scientific results of the last few decades have taught us, it is very often in the darkest corners of the universe that the chemical elements that could (or will be able) to trigger the evolution of other living beings like us are hidden.

In a new scientific publication in the journal Nature, scientists working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have announced that a close-up infrared analysis of the Chameleon Cloud has revealed a surprising variety of icy molecules hidden within it. . The great news is that they are not just any molecules but they are the interstellar bricks par excellence, i.e. those that will one day merge giving life to a new generation of stars and planets, which could present all the conditions to give way to new forms of life.

In the midst of structural elements such as dry ice, ammonia and water, the JWST has managed to detect evidence of the presence of prebiotic moleculesi.e. those specific chemical elements known for promote the formation of precursors of life. Here is a statement from Will Rocha, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory who contributed to the discovery.

“Our identification of complex organic molecules, such as methanol and potentially ethanol, also suggests that the multiple stellar and planetary systems developing in this particular cloud will inherit molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state. This could mean that the presence of prebiotic molecules in planetary systems it is a common result of star formation, rather than a unique feature of our Solar System.”

In other words, this discovery reminds us once again that humans, flowers, or even the simplest microbial organisms are not that uniquegiven that the ingredients that allowed life to be born and proliferate are not that rare.

Attention, it is good to clarify that the presence of prebiotic molecules is not synonymous with life and we do not know for sure how they could evolve during star formation, but this research will be part of the next phase of study. For more details, we refer you to the reading of the original publication, available in SOURCE.