A team of researchers at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disk for the first time, which, with nine atoms, makes it the largest molecule identified in such a disk to date. the date.
The discovery, made possible by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) instrument, located in Chile, is a precursor to larger organic molecules that can lead to the appearance of life.
Nashanty Brunken, a master’s student at the Leiden Observatory and lead author of this study published in Astronomy & Astrphysics, explains that “from these results we can learn more about the origin of life on our planet and, therefore, , get a better idea of the potential for life in other planetary systems.”
Dimethyl ether is an organic molecule commonly detected in star-forming clouds, but has never before been found in a planet-forming disk.
The team also made a tentative detection of methyl formate, a complex molecule similar to dimethyl ether that is also a key building block for even larger organic molecules.
“It’s really exciting to finally detect these larger molecules in the disks. For a while we thought we wouldn’t be able to see them,” says co-author Alice Booth, also a researcher at the Leiden Observatory.
The molecules were found in the planet-forming disk around the young star IRS 48, also known as Oph-IRS 48, located 444 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.
IRS 48 has been the subject of much study because its disk contains an atmospheric “dust trap” shaped like a cashew nut.
This region, which likely formed as a result of a newborn planet or small companion star located between the star and the dust trap, retains a large number of millimeter-sized dust grains that can coalesce into kilometer-sized objects. like comets, asteroids, and potentially even planets.
Many complex organic molecules, such as dimethyl ether, are thought to arise in star-forming clouds, even before the stars themselves are born. In these cold environments, simple atoms and molecules, such as carbon monoxide, stick to dust grains, forming a layer of ice and undergoing chemical reactions that result in more complex molecules.
The astronomical community recently discovered that the dust trap in the disk of IRS 48 is also an icy reservoir that harbors dust grains coated with this ice rich in complex molecules.
It is in this region of the disk that ALMA has detected signs of the dimethyl ether molecule: as the heating of IRS 48 sublimates the ice into gas, the trapped molecules, inherited from the cold clouds, are released and become detectable.
“What makes this even more exciting is that we now know that these larger complex molecules are available to fuel the planet-forming process in the disk,” says Booth.
“This was not known before, since in most systems these molecules are hidden in the ice,” he adds.
The discovery of dimethyl ether suggests that many other complex molecules commonly detected in star-forming regions may also lurk in icy structures present in planet-forming disks.
These molecules are the precursors to prebiotic molecules like amino acids and sugars, which are some of the building blocks of life. Studying their formation and evolution can improve our understanding of how prebiotic molecules end up on planets, including our own.
“We are excited to be able to start following the entire journey of these complex molecules from star-forming clouds to planet-forming and comet-forming disks. Hopefully, with more observations, we can get one step closer to understanding the origin of prebiotic molecules in our own Solar System”, concludes Nienke van der Marel, a researcher at the Leiden Observatory who also participated in the study. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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