What’s inside a cosmic snowball?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Between stars drift icy time capsules! They might hold clues to how life began. Let’s take a peek!
Enter Hanna Bouwman and team from Leiden University. They built a huge library of space-ice samples.
Each has a special light fingerprint: a unique pattern of absorbed and reflected light.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers compare those fingerprints to ice around young stars.
Results? A cosmic recipe book for life’s frozen ingredients!
By reading starlight, we can identify hidden chemicals in distant dust.
Who knew our origin story was inside a snowflake? Cindy Lou Who, that’s who.
Reference: Rocha, W. R. M., Terwisscha van Scheltinga, J., Ligterink, N. F. W., Allodi, M. A., Baas, F., Bouwman, J., & Linnartz, H. (2022). LIDA: The Leiden Ice Database for Astrochemistry. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 667, A163. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244032