For all the things we can’t understand, there are still some cool things that nicely match with expectations, and we’re going to end this segment with one of those pleasing results. Researchers led by Takashi Shimonishi used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to look for stars forming in the outskirts of the galaxy. These outer suburbs are largely untouched by the materials formed in generation after generation of stars in the inner regions of the Milky Way, and any stars forming will act more like stars in the early universe, than the enriched stars we see forming nearby today.

And they found a star-forming region in these outer reaches, and thanks to the amazing powers of ALMA, researchers could measure carbon-, oxygen-, nitrogen-, sulfur-, and silicon-bearing molecules, including complex organic molecules. This demonstrates that even the most remote and raw regions of our galaxy have the chemistry needed to build prebiotic molecules. This indicates that, while heavy elements are more scarce in the outer galaxy, complex chemistry can still find a way. According to Shimonishi: The interstellar conditions to form the chemical complexity might have persisted since the early history of the Universe.

I once thought that maybe life on Earth was as old as life in our universe could be because it takes time to build the stuff of worlds and people. This shows I was wrong and makes the question of “how common is life?” even more interesting to consider.

More Information

ALMA press release

“The Detection of a Hot Molecular Core in the Extreme Outer Galaxy,” Takashi Shimonishi, Natsuko Izumi, Kenji Furuya, and Chikako Yasui, 1 December 2021, The Astrophysical Journal