In deep space, astronomers spot precursor of carbon based life | Hacker News Reader

In deep space, astronomers spot precursor of carbon based life

theregister.com

104 pointsLinuxBender34 comments

Why is this a thing today? There are many complex molecule clouds floating around in space. More complex stuff than methyl has been found. Searching quickly to refresh my memory, they found formic acid in 1990:

https://europepmc.org/article/med/11538681

and amino acetonitrile in 2008:

https://www.mpg.de/567495/pressRelease20080325

By the title of this article, I would have guessed they found, say, an amino acid. Which is also already speculated and expected, but has possibly not yet been detected before. But methyl seems a bit trivial to me, or is the detection of it special and interesting in some other ways? I am not at all an expert, only quite interested.

Yeah, same. Methyl? That’s so simple it ought to be everywhere.

It's less about what's worthy of a headline and more about what's likely to collect clicks.

Feels like >50% of "science news" is just some unimportant study or minor discovery being exaggerated and touted as some big breakthrough.

I forgot where I read somewhere recently that science journalism comes down to:

-cure for cancer

-wine/chocolate is good/bad for you

-all of physics is wrong

-aliens! (depending on the zeitgeist)

With all the UFO crazy going on in the US, I guess the recycled an article to get more clicks.

And who says recycling is not happening these days :)

Out of the loop, but has there been anything particularly interesting UFO-wise lately?

As I recently read, scientists speak to the press when they are either trying to raise money or are obligated to do so by those who who have given them money. And the press is just excited to have something to print.

It is insane to imagine that we can detect light emitted by molecules that are 1,350 light years away ... just amazing.

It is probably the light of a star filtered by a cloud containing methyl ions. Still impressive that we can figure out in quite some detail what kind of stuff is flying around at the other end of the universe.

It’s 1350ly , which is like cosmically on our doorstep. Source : Space Engine, Elite Dangerous. But I am being pedantic, it’s indeed impressive what we can figure out.

I meant spectroscopy in general, not this particular instance.

>Elite Dangerous

I would die Friendship Driving 1.3k lightyears across, even with an exploration ship geared for 70~80 lightyears of jump range.

No, I haven't been to Colonia. Yet.

I have done it with a Krait Phantom with 65ly, did about 5k before space madness settled in.

Then I got my Carrier. This takes 45 minutes (3 x 15 min) If you really just want to get to the engineers you could also book a ride on a FCOC carrier and get out at Colonia!

unbelievable ??

sure we can... assumptions on top of assumptions on top of assumptions.

Can someone enlighten me on how it's possible for a space telescope to detect far away molecules?

I suppose it's not actually seeing the molecules themselves, but something that proves the molecules are there. The article mentions:

> UV rays [...] provided the energy to form the molecules

Is that it? The telescope detected UV rays, which necessarily (according to the scientists) correlates to the creation of methyl cations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/miri.h...

In short, the CH3+ emits light at a very specific wavelength, which can be detected.

Which isn’t really surprising/weird because all light is emitted by something. That something has a signature thanks to physics: the photons of light are emitted according to the structure of the atom. Basically.

Of course it’s a tad more nuanced. Emitted light has a signature, and things that absorb light can also impart their own signature.

Well, the simple fact, that light is emmitted does not necessarily imply, that the signature must be unique or very specific to any molecule. That is something with probably a way more complicated explanation, if one wants to dig deeper. I suspect something something quantum will also play a role, so probably without studying physics not properly understandable in depth.

I would have assumed that they detected this by the absorption spectrum imprinted on the spectrum of the star, not as the emission spectrum of the cloud itself.

Someone else already gave you the answer, but I think this is a better link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy

> Spectroscopy is a branch of science concerned with the spectra of electromagnetic radiation as a function of its wavelength or frequency measured by spectrographic equipment, and other techniques, in order to obtain information concerning the structure and properties of matter

Easy. It's a very good telescope! Er, microscope. Both!

The article is misleading, making it seem as if methyl cation, the species observed, were an essential component of life. It's not.

> Astronomers wielding the James Webb Space Telescope have detected methyl cations – important precursor molecules needed to create proteins and DNA and therefore fundamental to carbon-based life forms.

No study to date spells out a plausible path to abiogenesis - the creation of life from non-living chemical precursors. Without such a path, claims that any particular molecule is a "precursor of carbon based life" are suspect at best.

I'm still looking for intelligent life on this planet

There's some form of detection of organic matter or water or something vague in the direction of life every two weeks. I don't see how this is important

Next I expect them to say detection of atoms, which are a precursor of life.

I wonder how you can scale up this kind of survey, i.e., is there much manual analysis astronomers need to do to verify the emission spectrum. It'd be awesome to be in a position that the JWST could zip through a survey of these.

And to be flippant, if you ever drive through Jersey City you can spot plenty of precursors to carbon-based life too.

I will start caring when they will start publishing images. At least Hubble was inspirational to so many people. But Webb will give some western scientists tenured positions or something, which is also cool I guess.

There are lots of images published based on JWST data.

Every time I looked at any website linked in HN post's comments or the posts themselves, I have been disappointed by what I saw. Either a completely shitty website, that would not start showing any pictures without allowing the equivalent of tons in JS scripts, or just "artist impressions" or just articles talking about the pictures, or just something that does not tell me how things would look like, if I was hovering in space looking at them.

Where is that great website with beautiful pictures? Please link!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/72177...

flickr links? That cannot be the best they are able to do, can it? Don't they have their own website, where I can simply go and look at the images? I wouldn't consider a flickr album to be proper publishing by a project like James Webb telescope. With all the billions of cash in that, were they not able to make a proper website?

But at least links, I guess. With pictures. If that is the best that exists, OK sad. But at least something, so thanks.

It's an infrared telescope, it's never going to tell you what things would look like to the naked eye. The images are created by picking visible colours for different parts of the infrared spectrum in a consistent way to make the structure in the image visible.

They do publish images. What are you on about?

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