Planet-forming disks around stars may come preloaded with ingredients for life

[Judi Lynn]

Methanol found around a hot, young star must have formed in cooler interstellar environs



The planet-forming disk of gas and dust around a young star called HD 100546 (illustrated) appears to have inherited methanol from the interstellar cloud that formed the star.

L. CALÇADA/ESO

By Maria Temming

14 HOURS AGO

The chemistry leading to life may start before stars are even born.

In the planet-forming disk of gas and dust around a young star, astronomers have detected methanol. The disk is too warm for the methanol to have formed there, so this complex organic molecule probably originated in the interstellar cloud that collapsed to form the star and its disk, researchers report online May 10 in Nature Astronomy. This finding offers evidence that at least some organic matter from interstellar space can seed the disks around newborn stars to provide potential ingredients for life on new planets.

“That’s pretty exciting, because it means that, in principle, all planets forming around any kind of star could have this material,” says Viviana Guzmán, an astrochemist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago not involved in the work.

Complex organic molecules have been observed in interstellar clouds of gas and dust (SN: 3/22/21), as well as in planet-forming disks around young stars (SN: 2/18/08). But astronomers didn’t know whether organic material from interstellar space could survive the formation of a protoplanetary disk, or whether organic chemistry had to start from scratch around new stars.

“When you form a star and its disk, it’s not a very easy, breezy process,” says Alice Booth, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Radiation from the new star and shock waves in the imploding material, she says, “could destroy a lot of the molecules that were originally in your initial cloud.”

More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/life-chemistry-ingredients-methanol-planet-forming-disks-stars

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. I kinda feel like the author doesn't quite understand what 'organic molecule' means

in the world of 'science'.

There's definitely no 'organic matter' that remotely resembles what a non-scientist would understand that term to mean.

And methanol is one the simplest organic compounds in the universe, it's not that complex.

But other than that, it's pretty cool stuff!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Yes, this is a recurring problem.

And most of the potential readers are even less likely to know the distinction.

It doesn't help to use words like "seed" in this context.

The important thing is that there's a source of the element carbon, whatever its form, and that's not really anything new.