New discoveries ALMA discovers moons in the making

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Galaxy reveals its gaseous content in two ways

Stars are born from large clouds of cold gas. It’s called molecular gas, since it is composed not of single atoms, but of molecules like H2 (two hydrogen atoms strung together) and carbon monoxide (CO, a molecule consisting of one atom of carbon and one of oxygen). Molecular hydrogen...

ALMA finds oxygen in the early Universe

Astronomers have detected oxygen in a distant galaxy. The galaxy is so far away that its light has taken 13.1 billion years to reach us. That means that we see the galaxy as it was 13.1 billion years ago, when the Universe was ‘only’ 700 million years old. So...

Life’s building blocks come from outer space

Life is based on carbon chemistry. Without carbon, there would be no plants, animals, or people. Because carbon is so important for biology, all molecules that carry carbon atoms are called organic molecules. Simple organic molecules, like carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4), are the very first building blocks...

Planets form in a disk that contains alcohol

Astronomers have found alcohol in a planet-forming disk. It’s not the regular form of alcohol that makes you drunk. Instead, it’s methyl alcohol, or methanol. Moreover, the methanol that has been found is not in the form of a liquid. Instead, it’s a gas. Methanol consists of rather large...

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