Life's building blocks mapped in nebula 1,400 light-years from Earth
A team of scientists have tracked the development of molecules known as "life's building blocks" in a nebula far from Earth, adding to an ever-growing field of research that could one day help us figure out exactly how life formed in our solar system.
Scientists peered deep into the Iris Nebula -- located 1,400 light-years from our planet -- using powerful observatories to figure out exactly how the molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are distributed in the dusty region.
The medium-sized PAHs -- which are "flat molecules consisting of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, surrounded by hydrogen," according to NASA -- actually appear to grow larger when ultraviolet light from the large star at the nebula's center hits them.
You May Also Like
Instead of being destroyed like the small PAHs, the medium PAHs combine when irradiated, growing into larger complex organic molecules, according to NASA.
This may sound like esoteric research, but what the team found was important for our understanding of how life may have developed in the universe. Organic molecules like PAHs represent some of the most basic components of life as we know it, and researchers think they could be key to the development of carbon-based life.
"Scientists hypothesize that the growth of complex organic molecules like PAHs is one of the steps leading to the emergence of life," NASA said in a statement.
The new research is detailed in a study recently published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. To make the discovery, scientists used NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, the Spitzer telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and a telescope in Hawaii.
Researchers have found PAHs -- which can be released on Earth when cooking meat or burning other organic material -- all over the solar system and beyond.
In 2005, a study in the Astrophysical Journal detailed the discovery of PAHs in a galaxy 12 million light-years from the Milky Way. These complex organic molecules have also been found on Saturn's icy moon Iapetus. Saturn's largest moon Titan and the planet Jupiter also play host to those hydrocarbons in their atmospheres.
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has even found some other building blocks of life in Comet 67P, the object it has been orbiting in deep space since 2014.
The Rosetta orbiter discovered an amino acid in the comet's atmosphere, and some ideas about how life developed here on Earth hinge on the notion that objects like comets or asteroids brought life's basic materials to the planet.
Of course, scientists still aren't exactly sure what it takes to go from life's building blocks to life itself, but finding these molecules out in the universe is a good step on the way toward figuring it out.
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
