NASA's Webb finds frozen ingredients for life in a cold, dark molecular cloud 630 light-years away

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope imaged the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, about 630 light-years away, revealing the coldest, darkest ices ever measured inside a star-forming cloud. Beyond simple water ice, astronomers identified frozen ammonia — naturally present in volcanic gases and animal waste on Earth — along with frozen methane, found in wetlands and released by decomposing organic matter, and methanol, produced naturally by fermenting plants. Researchers said these icy grains could one day be incorporated into future exoplanets, and that finding complex molecules here suggested prebiotic chemistry may be a routine part of star formation everywhere, not a unique feature of our own solar system. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI; M. K. McClure, F. Sun, Z. Smith, and the Ice Age ERS Team; N. Bartmann, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)