Prebiotic atmosphere discovered on accretion disk of baby star

An international research team, led by Chin-Fei Lee of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan), has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to detect complex organic ...

Nitrogen in ancient rocks a sign of early life

Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients of life on Earth, with some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species ...

Discovery of an extragalactic hot molecular core

Astronomers have discovered a 'hot molecular core', a cocoon of molecules surrounding a newborn massive star, for the first time outside our Galaxy. The discovery, which marks the first important step for observational studies ...

First detection of methyl alcohol in a planet-forming disc

The organic molecule methyl alcohol (methanol) has been found by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disc. This is the first such detection of the compound in a young planet-forming ...

Cassini plunged into icy plumes of Enceladus

The Cassini spacecraft took a daring plunge into the icy geysers of Saturn's moon Enceladus this week in search of telltale signs of a habitable environment.

Trending science: Vitamin B3 may have been delivered from space

The results of laboratory experiments involving Vitamin B3 by a team of NASA researchers support a theory that the origin of life may have been assisted by a supply of 'biologically important molecules produced in space and ...

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