Why detecting carbon molecules in space matters

Subject :Science and Technology

Section: Space technology

Context:

The CH3+ molecule, which is also known as methyl cation, has been detected in space for the first time by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Life as we know it is carbon-based:

One of the most important unsolved problems of modern science is: How did life arise from non-living matter?
We still don’t know but we have a good idea of what the required steps are, for instance, the formation of complex organic molecules, like amino acids, from simpler ones, like CH3+, or methylium.
CH3+ is a very simple organic molecule, just one carbon atom and 3 hydrogen atoms. But it reacts with other molecules to form more complex ones. Its presence in space tells us that basic building blocks for life are out there.
Organic molecules are carbon-based. They contain carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen atoms but can also bond to other elements, such as oxygen, nitrogen or phosphorus.
Everything that makes us and all life on Earth is carbon-based.

Looking for molecular fingerprints in space:

Scientists found the fingerprints of the CH3+ molecule in the light coming from a swirling disk of dust and gas around a young star.
The disk is in the Orion Nebula, 1,350 light years from Earth.
- The Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye although you may only see a dot on Orion’s sword slightly below the belt.
Visible light is just a fraction of the whole picture. But every atom and molecule absorbs or emits light uniquely, with its own specific colour palette.
- For example, hydrogen, the simplest of atoms, when excited, emits a red glow, and if you view it through a prism, you will see four characteristic lines that make up its spectrum.
Scientists call this technique spectroscopy and in space, they use the James Webb Space Telescope to do it.

An unexpected discovery:

When astronomers captured the spectrum of this planet-forming disk, they took the help of Schlemmer’s lab.
The lab had been studying the fingerprint of molecules and analyzed CH3+ in detail. And that enabled scientists to match the unknown fingerprint detected by the JWST to this specific, life-giving molecule.

About James Webb Space Telescope (JWST):

The telescope is the result of an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency which was launched in December 2021.
It is currently at a point in space known as the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
- The Lagrange Point 2 is one of the five points in the orbital plane of the Earth-Sun system.
- Named after Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange, the points are in any revolving two-body system like Earth and Sun, marking where the gravitational forces of the two large bodies cancel each other out.
- Objects placed at these positions are relatively stable and require minimal external energy or fuel to keep themselves there, and so many instruments are positioned here.
It’s the largest, most powerful infrared space telescope ever built.
It’s the successor to Hubble Telescope.
It can see backwards in time to just after the Big Bang by looking for galaxies that are so far away that the light has taken many billions of years to get from those galaxies to our telescopes

Objectives:

It will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own Solar System.
The goals for the Webb can be grouped into four themes.
- The first is to look back around 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe.
- Second, to compare the faintest, earliest galaxies to today’s grand spirals and understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years.
- Third, to see where stars and planetary systems are being born.
- Fourth, to observe the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (beyond our solar system), and perhaps find the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe.