Researchers responsible for operating the James Webb Space Telescope have managed to capture the coldest object in the known universe so far. It is an interstellar molecular cloud in the confines of the cosmos at -263°C, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.
Molecular clouds are conglomerates of frozen molecules, gases, and dust particles. They are very special to astronomers and cosmologists, as they are in some way nests of stars and even planets like ours. This is why the researchers of James Webb aim at molecular clouds in the cosmos, to know more about how stars and planets formed in a primitive universe.
The research team aimed James Webb’s infrared camera at the Chameleon I molecular cloud, which is about 500 light-years away from us. They were able to detect frozen molecules of cyanopolyyne, ammonia, methane, methanol, and other important compounds, which at some point will be capable of forming the cores of planets or giving life to stars. They even managed to detect the basic components of life, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulfur, a molecular cocktail known among scientists as COHNS.
“Our results provide information about the initial dark chemical stage of ice formation in the interstellar dust grains that will become centimeter-sized pebbles, from which planets form,” said the lead author of the study, Melissa McClure, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands.
The Coldest Object in the Universe
The research team was in charge of observing and measuring ice particles in the confines of the Chameleon I molecular cloud. The measurements from the James Webb showed a temperature of -263°C, which is, so far, the lowest measurement thrown for a cosmic object or particle, making Chamaeleon I the coldest object in the entire universe discovered by humans.
To identify the dusty molecules of Chameleon I, James Webb used the stars beyond the molecular cloud as a reference. As the light from the stars travels towards us, the dust and molecules within the cloud cause it to change in a certain way as they absorb it peculiarly. These light absorption patterns are then compared to previously measured patterns in laboratories, allowing for a better understanding of the particles, including their temperature.
“This is just the first in a series of spectral snapshots that we will obtain to see how ices evolve from their initial synthesis to the comet-forming regions in protoplanetary disks,” says McClure. “This will tell us what mix of ices, and therefore what elements, can eventually be delivered to the surfaces of terrestrial exoplanets or incorporated into the atmospheres of gas or ice giant planets.”
Molecular clouds are in a sense like dusty nurseries where over millions of years, gases, ices, and specks of dust collapse into massive structures, leading to the formation of stars and protoplanets.
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera.
