Observing how the light from a star is absorbed by cold molecular gas in front of it, the James Webb telescope was able to discover a diversity of ices with the vital ingredients to build habitable planets.
At just 650 light years away, the Chameleon molecular cloud complex, is a well-known region of star formation, one of the nearest in our Milky Way Galaxy [1]. In this complex, there are three molecular clouds, each with different morphologies and stages of evolution. In Chameleon I, we have the well-studied Chameleon Infrared Nebula. This nebula has been observed with ground-based telescopes[2], and in the image below, it stands out with its orange V shape cloud of material streaming from a newly formed star.
At top of Chameleon I, there is a less conspicuous region of star formation where a group of investigators pointed the powerful James Webb telescope. With its unique power to see through dust and cold gas and identify molecules, astronomers discovered something that might change, yet again, our understanding of our place in the cosmos and how habitable planets form. In this set of Webb observations, astronomers obtained an inventory of its molecular content. They discovered that the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud already has the icy molecules with the key elements to form more complex molecules, those that can lead to planets like in our solar system.
We know that stars form within the darkest and densest molecular clouds, and planets follow from the material left over from the formation of the star. The fact that the observations reveal frozen forms of a wide range of molecules, from water, carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, methane, and methanol already present in the dense molecular material, indicates that the ingredients to create a habitable planet are already within the starforming cloud. The observations also estimate that the amount of sulfur embedded in icy interstellar dust grains is less than expected [3]. This could mean that the key elements - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur- could be hiding in soot like material or rocks, which will survive the star formation and could end up in the atmospheres or the interior of exoplanets.
The results of these observations highlight three important things
Key elements for the building blocks of life are present in molecules already in the parent molecular cloud
Stars and planetary systems will inherit these complex molecules
The precursors to prebiotic molecules in planetary systems could be common to star formation
For more information go to the full article on this observation at webbtelescope.org
References:
[1] Chamaeleon_RobertEder1024
[2] Chameleon IR Nebula https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noirlab2129a/
[3] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-106