At a distance of 330 light-years from the Solar System, near the young star HD 100453, astronomers have made an amazing discovery. Using the powerful ALMA telescope array in Chile, they discovered not only methanol, or methyl alcohol, but also its rare isotopes in the gas disk rotating around the star. This is a discovery of global significance, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Methanol is not just “space alcohol.” It is a fundamental building block for more complex organic compounds such as amino acids — the main components of proteins, without which life cannot begin. Methanol has been found in other protoplanetary disks before, but its isotopes have been detected for the first time. These isotopes carry unique information about where and under what conditions an organic molecule was formed.
“Finding these isotopes of methanol gives essential insight into the history of ingredients necessary to build life here on Earth,” emphasized study leader Alice Booth of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The key to life on Earth?
The star HD 100453 is more massive than our Sun. This means that its disk heats up more, and molecules such as methanol remain in a gaseous state at much greater distances from the star than they would in a young Solar System. In the colder disks of smaller stars, methanol usually freezes into ice, making it difficult for ALMA to detect. The observatory’s power allowed not only to detect methanol, but also to study its distribution and composition in detail.
The most important conclusion of the researchers is that the ratio of methanol to other organic molecules in the HD 100453 disk is very similar to that found in comets in our own Solar System. This directly confirms the theory that organic substances are formed in the ice of protoplanetary disks. Subsequently, this ice condenses to form comets. And comets, falling onto young planets, can bring these “building blocks of life” to them.
“This research supports the idea that comets may have played a big role in delivering important organic material to the Earth billions of years ago. They may be the reason why life, including us, was able to form here,” explained co-author Milou Temmink from Leiden University.
The discovery of methanol isotopes in the HD 100453 disk is not just a finding of an exotic substance. This is direct evidence that the key chemical processes necessary for the emergence of life are actively occurring in protoplanetary disks around young stars. And these processes seem to be very similar to those that once led to our appearance on Earth.
Earlier, we reported on how astronomers tasted and smelled a giant cloud of alcohol.
According to livescience.com
