Follow
Even though the scientific community has not succeeded in confirming the existence of alien life, but a new study has shown that the complex organic molecules responsible for making life possible are not unique to our solar system.
The new study showed that the complex, carbon-based molecules exist in the proto-planetary disk of the alien star system.
The scientists used an advanced telescope, called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), to find out the presence of methyl cyanide (CH3CN) in the thick gas disk that surrounded the million-year-old star, known as MWC 480.
The newly formed star, which is approximately double the sun’s size, is positioned in the Taurus star-forming region, which is 455 light-years away.
The new discoveries confirm that the thick circumstellar disks richly contain cyanide molecules, which has been long suspected by the scientists.
Cyanides, mainly methyl cyanide, are important for the chemical environment enabling life. The carbon-nitrogen bonds of the cyanides are an important component of amino acids, which are the building block of the biological molecules, called proteins.
The study also proved that the complicated carbon-based molecules are able to survive a young star system’s volatility.
Karin Oberg, lead study author and an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said, “Studies of comets and asteroids show that the solar nebula that spawned the Sun and the planets was rich in water and complex organic compounds. We now have evidence that this same chemistry exists elsewhere in the universe, in regions that could form solar systems not unlike our own.”
The findings of the study were published this week in the journal Nature.
