Astronomers Detected the Universe's FIRST Type of Molecule Ever Formed

 Astronomers recently made a stunning discovery that fills a huge hole in our knowledge of the origins of life in the universe

 and for the first time have found large organic molecules that form the precursors of life welcome the Science Reads in today's article we pull back the curtain on an entirely new set of clues to how life itself forms even as planets are in their primordial stages of development a general view of life's origins is that first stars form which is followed by collisions of dust in the cloud of gas and particles that were not used in the birth of the baby star multiple models attempt to explain the exact process and there are certainly more than one that these leftovers become new worlds now for the fun part scientists believe our young earth was heavily bombarded by comets and asteroids for its first billion years of existence what a spectacle that would be to see the impact of cosmic missiles pounding the surface on a daily basis beautiful yes but deadly however in this chaos of collisions that by their own violent nature prevented life's emergence came the very same materials that allowed earth to host life some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago the oldest fossil we have found dates back 3.5 billion years ago and evidence shows that biological activity began even earlier so almost immediately when the cosmic assaults on the young earth tapered off and allowed temperatures to fall enough for water and carbon-based molecules to proliferate we had life and its building blocks came from the cosmos delivered by battering rams that pummeled the ground you walk on for hundreds of millions of years and now with this startling discovery of organic molecules present in protoplanetary dust a major secret of the universe is revealed astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Sub-millimeter Array or Alma Telescope in Chile an observatory co-owned by the European Southern Observatory ESO detected the largest organic molecule ever found in planet-forming

 disks of dust and gas around a young star the groundbreaking discovery clearly demonstrates the presence of precursors to complex organic molecules that can lead to life itself and the molecules are there before the planet even forms a team from leiden university in the

 Netherlands authored the exciting study which was published in the journal astronomy and physics lead author nashanti brunken says the findings of their research fill in large gaps of how complex molecules go from star-forming regions of intergalactic space to planet-forming regions and then onto the planets and may serve as the starting point for life 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 brunken said it is very exciting to see how the

 findings fit into the bigger picture

 the discovery as leiden observatory researcher and study co-author alice booth notes

 came as a surprise it is really exciting to finally detect these larger molecules and discs for a while we thought it might

 not be possible to observe them

 researchers focused their study on irs 48 a fascinating star some 444 light years away because of its massive asymmetric cashew shaped dust trap it is believed this region formed due to either a new planet or a small companion star perched between the star and the dust trap numerous studies over the past decade have been made since it is comprised of huge quantities of dust grains as well as other particles and gases coming together to form comets asteroids and even planets in other words we are studying a solar system's delivery room and nursery within the ring astronomers now know the organic compound dimethyl ether exists this is a large molecule with nine atoms and is a precursor to larger organic molecules that are life's building blocks such as amino acids and sugars not only are we living in this universe the universe is living within us dimethyl ether is seen in star-forming clouds but before now had never been found in planet-forming disks like the one around irs-48 astronomers believed before this discovery that many complex organic molecules develop in the cold environments of star-forming clouds atoms and simple molecules attach to dust particles which then form an ice layer

 and through chemical reactions become more complex molecules now researchers also know that the irs-48 dust trap is also an ice reservoir which means it has these ice particles known to be rich in complex molecules as heat from the star transforms the ice into gas the molecules are now released and become detectable to observers as leiden observatory researcher 9k vendor merrell noted in the study we are incredibly pleased that we can now start to follow the entire journey of these complex molecules from the clouds that form stars to planet-forming disks and to comets merrell goes on to express hope that more observations will lead to understanding how prebiotic molecules formed in our solar system the finding of dimethyl ether indicates that several other complex molecules found in star-forming areas may also exist in icy planet-forming disks in fact besides confirming the largest organic molecule ever spotted in the ring of irs48 the team also found several similar organic compounds one of these is methyl formate another compound that is a big building block for the larger molecules necessary for life to develop the more astronomers find these complex organic molecules or comms the closer we get to understanding how life began in our solar system and quite possibly elsewhere using facilities such as alma in Chile and the rosetta orbiter spectrometer for ion and neutral analysis Rosina researchers observe and compare chemistry across a wide range of cosmic environments so what does this mean for finding life away from earth in terms of the terrestrial timeline life formed very quickly after our planet exited its violent beginning and oceans formed evidence suggests this happened in as little as 300 million years a quick emergence considering the earth's lifespan researchers base their theoretical models on two basic precepts that life is common or that life is rare from there more statistical inferences can be made such as if that life is intelligent and if planets have similar conditions and timelines as earth and we know that our own galaxy alone has many in this description how many of them support life and do any support life that is intelligent and complex in a fascinating paper published in the proceeding of the national academy of sciences david kipping of the columbia department of astronomy replayed the development of life on earth using a statistical model called bayesian inference to make this work he plugged in what we know about the rapid emergence of life but very late evolution of humankind and simulated a historical do-over to see how many times intelligent life came from our planet's beginnings kipping likens the process to gambling the technique is akin to betting odds he says it encourages the repeated testing of new evidence against your position in essence a positive feedback loop of refining your estimates of likelihood of an event one fascinating result was the scenario of common life always came up as nine times more likely than life being rare but what kind of life are we talking about kipping's work shows that on those planets with similar conditions as earth it should be common for life to develop when they have moved on from the early and more violent phase of development intelligent life is another matter in betting terms he finds the odds just three to two in favor of intelligence the reason for this difficulty is the incredible length of time it took between the first life on earth to form in the planet's habitable window to humanity's late appearance kipping concludes though his work offers no certainties or guarantees that the statistical probability of intelligent life even on a world similar to ours is much lower than more basic life forms yet encouragingly the case for a universe teeming with life emerges as the favored bat the search for intelligent life in worlds beyond earth should be by no means discouraged as for the recent discovery of large organic molecules in planet-forming areas astronomers are one step closer to understanding how life begins the leiden observatory team hopes to conduct future studies on the very inner region of irs-48's protoplanetary disk where researchers believe earth-like planets may be forming and they already know precursors of life are there so what do you think about the confirmation of the largest organic molecules ever detected in the pre-formation of new planets are we getting even closer to confirming that far from being alone our universe is teeming with a rich and diverse array of life forms tell us in the comments