Africa-Press – Liberia. The molecule’s presence was discovered using the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array. A relatively large molecule that can potentially serve as “building block for sugars and other biomolecules” has been spotted by scientists at a disk of dust and gas that circles star IRS 48 located some 444 light years away from Earth, according to ScienceAlert.
The molecule in question, dimethyl ether, is comprised of two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms, and an oxygen atom, and since it was found in a “dust trap” that will “clump together to form exoplanets,” this discovery could potentially help scientists to gain further insight on how life in the universe emerges.
As previous research revealed that the “dust trap” harbours ice containing complex molecules, Brunken’s team attempted to use the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to see what they can spot there.
Since ice in the dust trap sublimates when the radiation from the host star reaches it, the media outlet notes, a powerful enough telescope might be able to detect molecules contained within that ice based on their spectrum, and the researchers argue that emissions they detected seem “strongly consistent with dimethyl ether.”
Astronomer Nienke van der Marel from Leiden Observatory also expressed hope that further observations could help “get a step closer to understanding the origin of prebiotic molecules in our own Solar System.”
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