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The Universe Is Teeming With Complex Organic Molecules
Wherever astronomers look, they see life’s raw materials—and hints at answers to one of the great mysteries of science.
By sending probes to sample primordial comets and asteroids, peering into planet-forming disks with telescopes, and re-creating spacelike conditions in labs and computer models, scientists are uncovering the origins of complex organic molecules. The James Webb Space Telescope observed a young galaxy, seeing it as it appeared just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, and detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons —hefty molecules that look a bit like honeycombs. Glein and his colleagues have used James Webb Space Telescope observations of methane in the outer solar system as evidence that some icy Kuiper Belt objects could have warm, wet interiors.
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