Simple ingredients in a simple way. 👩‍🍳⁣ ⁣ Our NASAWebb telescope has observed the ingredients that may lead to habitable planets, trapped in ice. This ice was found about 630 light-years from Earth in a dark, cold molecular cloud called Chamaeleon I. (Molecular clouds are clouds where stars and planets can be born.) There isn’t just water ice; scientists found evidence of frozen ingredients ranging from simple molecules like carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, and methane to those more complex than methanol.⁣ ⁣ By imaging Chamaeleon I in specific infrared wavelengths, Webb scientists examined how starlight from beyond the molecular cloud was absorbed by the icy molecules, leaving “chemical fingerprints.” These “fingerprints” were then studied against lab data here on Earth. The findings suggest that newly formed planetary systems in this molecular cloud receive complex molecules that could be the precursor to life through star formation.⁣ ⁣ Image Description: A Webb image of the central regi...