O&A WITH A PLANETARY SCIENTIST

The materials that form the building blocks of life on Earth have been found in distant planet-forming discs that are the same size as the Solar System

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You have identified organic molecules in protoplanetary discs circling newly formed stars. Where are these discs?

These discs are located between about 300 to 500 lightyears from Earth, so we are actually seeing the discs as they appeared 300 to 500 years ago. The regions in which these discs exist are some of the closest star-forming regions to our Solar System, which means we can get an excellent view of them.

How did you identify organic molecules from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array ALMA) data?

Compared to previous instruments, ALMA has hugely increased our observational capability. It combines extremely high sensitivity with a high spatial resolution. This means we can detect faint emission on small scales, which was essential for our study. We searched for the unique fingerprints’ of these molecules in the ALMA data, which were very faint, but thanks to the data’s exceptional quality we were able to detect their emission.

Were these findings surprising?