New discoveries ALMA studies ‘pregnant’ clouds in the Milky Way

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Suprise: ALMA got to see the line where snow starts around a young star

What happens if you throw little sticks or dry pine needles in a camp fire? The flames get brighther and the air gets warmer, right? Something similiar happens with new born stars! A few million years after they are born, most stars are surrounded by a disk of swirling...

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...

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