We're talking about aliens again. There are many hypotheses that say that space is full of life and the Earth is not at all unique. Supporters of this point of view have a powerful argument. Many molecules have been found near the star MWC 480, similar to those from which life began on Earth.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered complex organic molecules in a protoplanetary disk 455 light-years from Earth. The results were so important that they were promptly published in one of the two coolest scientific journals, namely Nature on April 9, 2015.
What did astronomers do in the distant Chilean desert? (Yes, yes, the European Southern Observatory is not in Europe, but in Chile.) The study involved the huge ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array) observatory: sixty-six 12-meter and 7-meter antennas that move on rails on distance up to 15 kilometers. They can be used as one huge radio telescope operating at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.
“We are not something out of the ordinary. This is very good news for those who are trying to figure out how common life is in the Universe."
On this huge device, astronomers observed the vicinity of the star MWC 480 in the constellation Taurus. This is a very young star, it is only a million years old (the age of our Sun is about five billion). Naturally, the star has no planetary system yet. A protoplanetary disk of gas and dust revolves around it, in which the formation of planets is taking place right now.
This very disk was observed in the submillimeter range by ALMA astronomers led by Karin Eberg. It turned out that the marginal, cold parts of the protoplanetary disk (this region is in a sense similar to the Kuiper belt in the solar system, in which Pluto is located) are rich in the same building blocks of future life that, according to some hypotheses, led to the emergence of life on Earth.
The protoplanetary disk MWC 480 contains a large amount of acetic acid nitrile (methyl cyanogen or acetonitrile, as it is also called by organic chemists). There is a lot of this substance, along with hydrocyanic acid (hydrogen cyanide). Methyl cyanogen, for example, is enough to fill all of Earth's oceans.
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The discovery of organic matter in space itself is not a sensation. Simple organic molecules (the same hydrogen cyanide) were found on other planets and in the interstellar medium. It is important that it is these substances and exactly in such a ratio as in the disk of MWC 480 that are found in comets of the solar system. On comets and asteroids, modern models are responsible for delivering water and simple organic substances to the inner planets (including the Earth), from which you and I ultimately arose.
It is also important that in such a large amount, organic matter could form in a protoplanetary cloud in a very short time. So the key message of the article is the thesis about the universality of the mechanisms of the origin of life on planets. It is possible that in a couple of billion years on MWC 480 creatures consisting of amino acids and nucleic acid bases similar to ours will crawl and run. And after another three billion, there will be a mind capable of building large telescopes.
455 St. years - This is the distance to the star MWC 480. For comparison: the closest star to us Proxima Centauri is at a distance of 4.22 light years, and to the most distant of the detected so far galaxies - 13.5 billion light years.
“By studying exoplanets, we've learned that the solar system is not unique in terms of the number of planets or the presence of water,” writes lead author of the Nature paper Karin Eberg. - Now we know that we are not anything special in the sense of organic chemistry. That is, we have once again made sure that we are not something out of the ordinary. This is very good news for anyone trying to figure out how common life is in the universe."
I must say that in the solar system "complex" organics have been found more than once. For example, the Stardust mission, NASA's spacecraft launched in 1999, yielded very interesting results. In 2004, it passed through the tail of Comet Wild 2 and collected particles of comet matter in a flytrap-like airgel trap.
Two years later, the mission lander landed in Utah. The particles delivered to Earth contained traces of glycine, an aminoacetic acid, one of the essential amino acids. In this case, the isotopic composition (the ratio of carbon isotopes-12 and -13) for terrestrial and cometary glycine is different.
Another chance to catch extraterrestrial organics (and perhaps confirm the existence of life somewhere nearby) may appear in 2030. It was then that the European interplanetary station JUICE should arrive in the vicinity of Jupiter. Its target is the ice moons of the largest planet in the solar system: Ganymede, Europa, Callisto.
It is already known for sure that under the ice crust of two of them - Europa and Ganymede - water oceans are raging, in which there can be life. How do you know if it is there? Of course, with the current level of technology, it is unrealistic to land, say, on Europe and drill several kilometers of ice to take water samples.
However, planetary scientists have come up with a way out. Jupiter's gravity regularly creates cracks in the ice crust, and the water of the oceans reaches the surface and into the atmosphere. It is these trace amounts of substances in the atmosphere that the heterodyne SWI detector should distinguish, the terahertz radiation detector for which is being developed by two laboratories at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. But, as we understand, it will take a very, very long time to wait for the results of this mission.
Alexey Paevsky
Magazine "Schrödinger's Cat" # 5 (07) May 2015