Astronomers recently made a stunning discovery
that fills a huge hole in our knowledge of the origins of life in the universe
and for the first time have found large organic molecules that form the precursors of life
welcome the Factnomenal in today's video we pull back the curtain on an entirely new set of
clues to how life itself forms even as planets are in their primordial stages of development
a general view of life's origins is that first stars form which is followed by collisions of dust
in the cloud of gas and particles that were not used in the birth of the baby star multiple models
attempt to explain the exact process and there are certainly more than one that these leftovers
become new worlds now for the fun part scientists believe our young earth was heavily bombarded by
comets and asteroids for its first billion years of existence what a spectacle that would be to
see the impact of cosmic missiles pounding the surface on a daily basis beautiful yes but deadly
however in this chaos of collisions that by their own violent nature prevented life's emergence came
the very same materials that allowed earth to host life some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago the oldest
fossil we have found dates back 3.5 billion years ago and evidence shows that biological activity
began even earlier so almost immediately when the cosmic assaults on the young earth tapered
off and allowed temperatures to fall enough for water and carbon-based molecules to proliferate
we had life and its building blocks came from the cosmos delivered by battering rams that pummeled
the ground you walk on for hundreds of millions of years and now with this startling discovery
of organic molecules present in protoplanetary dust a major secret of the universe is revealed
astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Sub-millimeter Array or Alma Telescope in Chile
an observatory co-owned by the European Southern Observatory ESO detected the largest organic
molecule ever found in planet-forming disks of dust and gas around a young star
the groundbreaking discovery clearly demonstrates the presence of precursors to complex organic
molecules that can lead to life itself and the molecules are there before the planet even forms
a team from leiden university in the Netherlands authored the exciting study
which was published in the journal astronomy and physics lead author nashanti brunken says the
findings of their research fill in large gaps of how complex molecules go from star-forming regions
of intergalactic space to planet-forming regions and then onto the planets and may serve as the
starting point for life from these results we can learn more about the origin of life on our planet
and therefore get a better idea of the potential for life in other planetary systems brunken said
it is very exciting to see how the findings fit into the bigger picture
the discovery as leiden observatory researcher and study co-author alice booth notes
came as a surprise it is really exciting to finally detect these larger molecules and discs
for a while we thought it might not be possible to observe them
researchers focused their study on irs 48 a fascinating star some 444 light years away
because of its massive asymmetric cashew shaped dust trap it is believed this region formed
due to either a new planet or a small companion star perched between the star and the dust trap
numerous studies over the past decade have been made since it is comprised of huge quantities of
dust grains as well as other particles and gases coming together to form comets asteroids and
even planets in other words we are studying a solar system's delivery room and nursery
within the ring astronomers now know the organic compound dimethyl ether exists this is a large
molecule with nine atoms and is a precursor to larger organic molecules that are life's
building blocks such as amino acids and sugars not only are we living in this universe the universe
is living within us dimethyl ether is seen in star-forming clouds but before now had never been
found in planet-forming disks like the one around irs-48 astronomers believed before this discovery
that many complex organic molecules develop in the cold environments of star-forming clouds
atoms and simple molecules attach to dust particles which then form an ice layer
and through chemical reactions become more complex molecules now researchers also know
that the irs-48 dust trap is also an ice reservoir which means it has these ice particles known to be
rich in complex molecules as heat from the star transforms the ice into gas the molecules are now
released and become detectable to observers as leiden observatory researcher 9k vendor merrell
noted in the study we are incredibly pleased that we can now start to follow the entire journey
of these complex molecules from the clouds that form stars to planet-forming disks and to comets
merrell goes on to express hope that more observations will lead to understanding how
prebiotic molecules formed in our solar system the finding of dimethyl ether indicates that several
other complex molecules found in star-forming areas may also exist in icy planet-forming disks
in fact besides confirming the largest organic molecule ever spotted in the ring of irs48 the
team also found several similar organic compounds one of these is methyl formate
another compound that is a big building block for the larger molecules necessary for life to develop
the more astronomers find these complex organic molecules or comms the closer we get to
understanding how life began in our solar system and quite possibly elsewhere using facilities
such as alma in Chile and the rosetta orbiter spectrometer for ion and neutral analysis Rosina
researchers observe and compare chemistry across a wide range of cosmic environments
so what does this mean for finding life away from earth in terms of the terrestrial timeline life
formed very quickly after our planet exited its violent beginning and oceans formed
evidence suggests this happened in as little as 300 million years a quick emergence considering
the earth's lifespan researchers base their theoretical models on two basic precepts that
life is common or that life is rare from there more statistical inferences can be made such as
if that life is intelligent and if planets have similar conditions and timelines as earth and we
know that our own galaxy alone has many in this description how many of them support life and do
any support life that is intelligent and complex in a fascinating paper published in the proceeding
of the national academy of sciences david kipping of the columbia department of astronomy replayed
the development of life on earth using a statistical model called bayesian inference
to make this work he plugged in what we know about the rapid emergence of life but very late
evolution of humankind and simulated a historical do-over to see how many times intelligent life
came from our planet's beginnings kipping likens the process to gambling the technique is akin to
betting odds he says it encourages the repeated testing of new evidence against your position
in essence a positive feedback loop of refining your estimates of likelihood of an event
one fascinating result was the scenario of common life always came up as nine times more likely
than life being rare but what kind of life are we talking about kipping's work shows that on those
planets with similar conditions as earth it should be common for life to develop when they have moved
on from the early and more violent phase of development intelligent life is another matter
in betting terms he finds the odds just three to two in favor of intelligence the reason for
this difficulty is the incredible length of time it took between the first life on earth to form
in the planet's habitable window to humanity's late appearance kipping concludes though his
work offers no certainties or guarantees that the statistical probability of intelligent life even
on a world similar to ours is much lower than more basic life forms yet encouragingly the case for a
universe teeming with life emerges as the favored bat the search for intelligent life in worlds
beyond earth should be by no means discouraged as for the recent discovery of large organic
molecules in planet-forming areas astronomers are one step closer to understanding how life begins
the leiden observatory team hopes to conduct future studies on the very inner region of
irs-48's protoplanetary disk where researchers believe earth-like planets may be forming
and they already know precursors of life are there so what do you think about the confirmation of the
largest organic molecules ever detected in the pre-formation of new planets are we getting even
closer to confirming that far from being alone our universe is teeming with a rich and diverse
array of life forms tell us in the comments and as always thank you for watching Factnomenal