James Webb Space Telescope detects crucial carbon molecule for the first time

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected a crucial carbon molecule in space for the first time. The compound, called methyl cation or CH3+, has been discovered for the first time in a young star system 1,350 light-years from Earth in the Orion Nebula, according to NASA.

It hasn’t escaped the notice of James Webb yet again

Carbon compounds are of interest to scientists because they form the basis of all life as we know and understand it. The methyl cation, on the other hand, is considered a key component that helps create more complex carbon-based molecules. Understanding how life began and evolved on Earth could help researchers determine whether life is possible elsewhere in the universe as well.

James Webb made this important observation with his advanced infrared camera. The space observatory detected the methyl cation in a protoplanetary disk called d203-506 orbiting a young red dwarf star. You can visualize this point as the early periods of the Solar system. Composed largely of gas and dust, these disks are remnants of star formation. Planets are born in these massive stellar halos and become planetary systems.

could not be detected before

Red dwarf stars are much smaller and cooler than our Sun, but the d203-506 system is still exposed to strong ultraviolet light from neighboring young, massive stars. In most scenarios, UV radiation is expected to destroy organic molecules, but the team speculates that the radiation may actually provide a necessary energy source that allows the methyl cation to form. Once the methyl cation is formed, it can be expected to lead to additional chemical reactions that allow for the formation of more complex carbon molecules even at low temperatures in space.

While the methyl cation does not react efficiently with hydrogen, the most abundant molecule in the universe, it can react with a wide variety of other molecules. Because of this chemical property, astronomers have long considered CH3+ an important building block of interstellar organic chemistry. But the methyl cation had not been detected in space until now.

“This finding not only confirms Webb’s incredible sensitivity, but also confirms the presumed central importance of CH3+ in interstellar chemistry,” said Marie-Aline Martin-Drumel, a researcher at the Orsay Institute of Molecular Sciences at Paris-Saclay University in France. said. Unfortunately, there seems to be very little water in the disk itself, something that will ultimately prevent life as we know it from forming.