{"id":457,"date":"2025-11-03T12:51:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/?p=457"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:51:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:51:34","slug":"scientists-spot-five-complex-organic-molecules-including-vinegars-acetic-acid-frozen-in-star-forming-ice-outside-the-milky-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/?p=457","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Spot Five Complex Organic Molecules \u2014 Including Vinegar\u2019s Acetic Acid \u2014 Frozen in Star-forming Ice Outside the Milky Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"02eb8743c28d6c1e6f2b405980996749\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : 'c8310ef23effe95e5309c38cfaf056e0',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 250,\r\n    'width' : 300,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/passivealexis.com\/c8310ef23effe95e5309c38cfaf056e0\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a landmark discovery, scientists have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect five large, carbon-based molecules frozen in the icy envelope of a protostar beyond our own galaxy. The protostar, named ST6, is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) \u2014 a small galaxy orbiting the Milky Way roughly 160,000 light-years away.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The molecules identified include methanol, acetaldehyde, ethanol, methyl formate, and remarkably acetic acid (the compound that gives vinegar its smell). Acetic acid had never before been conclusively found frozen in space.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What makes the finding especially exciting is the challenging environment of the LMC: it has a lower abundance of \u201cheavy\u201d elements (i.e., lower metallicity) and intense ultraviolet radiation \u2014 conditions thought to mirror those in the early Universe. And yet, despite these harsh conditions, complex organic chemistry appears to be taking place.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How the Discovery Was Made<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On March 10, 2024, JWST\u2019s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) with the Medium Resolution Spectrograph (MRS) observed ST6 across wavelengths from 4.9 \u00b5m to 27.9 \u00b5m. The high spectral resolution and sensitivity allowed the team to detect absorption features of ices on dust grains around the protostar. These ices locked in complex organic molecules (COMs) on the surfaces of those grains.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Before this, only methanol had been securely detected in icy form around protostars \u2014 and only within our own Milky Way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What Was Found<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a breakdown of the five complex organic molecules identified in the ice around ST6:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Methanol (CH\u2083OH) \u2013 Already known and expected, but once again confirmed in icy environments.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Acetaldehyde (CH\u2083CHO) \u2013 A molecule with a carbonyl and an aldehyde group, rarely found in solid state beyond our galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ethanol (CH\u2083CH\u2082OH) \u2013 The same molecule found in alcoholic beverages, but here frozen in space around a forming star.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Methyl formate (HCOOCH\u2083) \u2013 A more complex molecule with an ester functional group.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Acetic acid (CH\u2083COOH) \u2013 The standout: never before conclusively detected as ice in space.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the spectrum of ST6 showed many \u201csimple\u201d ice constituents (water, CO\u2082, CH\u2084, etc.) and hints of a possible detection of glycolaldehyde (HOCH\u2082CHO) \u2014 a sugar-like precursor molecule \u2014 although that one remains tentative.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Why It Matters<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This discovery matters for several key reasons:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>New frontier: It is the first time that so many large organic molecules have been detected frozen in the ice around a protostar outside the Milky Way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Low-metallicity context: ST6 resides in an environment with only about one-third to one-half the metallicity of our galaxy. Metals (in astrophysical terms: elements heavier than helium) and dust grains are crucial for molecule formation and shielding from radiation. Finding complex organics despite fewer heavy elements suggests that pre-biotic chemistry might be more robust or universal than previously believed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Implications for life\u2019s chemistry: While this doesn\u2019t mean life exists there, it shows the \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d for biomolecules may be widespread \u2014 even in harsh cosmic environments. That widens the scope for where life-friendly chemistry could emerge in the universe.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What Comes Next<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The research team plans to expand the search to other protostars in the LMC and possibly in the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). By comparing how these organic ices vary across galaxies and environments, they hope to better understand how metallicity, ultraviolet radiation, and dust content influence the formation of complex organic molecules.<\/p>\n<p>They also emphasise the need for more laboratory spectra of these molecules frozen in ices so that the spectral fingerprints can be better understood and matched to observations.<\/p>\n<p>By detecting five large organic molecules including acetic acid in the icy envelope of a protostar beyond our galaxy, scientists have opened a new chapter in astrochemistry. The fact that this happened in the low-metallicity, high-UV environment of the Large Magellanic Cloud suggests that complex organic chemistry one of the precursors to biology may be far more widespread in the universe than previously thought.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: Marta Sewi\u0142o et al., \u201cProtostars at Subsolar Metallicity: First Detection of Large Solid\u2010state Complex Organic Molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud,\u201d Astrophysical Journal Letters, 992(2), L30 (2025).<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a landmark discovery, scientists have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect five large, carbon-based molecules frozen in the icy envelope of a protostar beyond our own galaxy. The protostar, named ST6, is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) \u2014 a small galaxy orbiting the Milky Way roughly 160,000 light-years away.\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/?p=457\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astronomy","category-space"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomynews.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}