The article sounds interesting, but the press coverage is bad and the title horrible.
They didn't reveal the origin of life. Just a few organic molecules in the gas arround the star, but this is not unexpected. Titan is full of organic molecules, but they are locally produced, not collected from the gas around the star.
> We identified 26 molecules, including 14 COMs and 12 other molecules, with first detection in this source of the molecules: CH₃OD, H₂C¹⁷O, and H₂C¹³O. We searched for multiple nitrogen-bearing COMs, as CH₃CN had been the only nitrogen-bearing COM that has been identified so far in this source. We also detected CH₃CN, and tentatively detect CH₃CH₂CN, CH₂CHCN, CH₃OCN, CH₃NCO, and NH₂CHO.
So they detected molecules with 5-10 atoms. Sugar has like 40 atoms and is one of the simplest molecules in a cell. A typical fat like a hundred. A human chromosome has like 1E11 atoms. Again: The article sounds interesting, but the press coverage is bad and the title horrible.
gus_massa•6mo ago
They didn't reveal the origin of life. Just a few organic molecules in the gas arround the star, but this is not unexpected. Titan is full of organic molecules, but they are locally produced, not collected from the gas around the star.
Form https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06005
> We identified 26 molecules, including 14 COMs and 12 other molecules, with first detection in this source of the molecules: CH₃OD, H₂C¹⁷O, and H₂C¹³O. We searched for multiple nitrogen-bearing COMs, as CH₃CN had been the only nitrogen-bearing COM that has been identified so far in this source. We also detected CH₃CN, and tentatively detect CH₃CH₂CN, CH₂CHCN, CH₃OCN, CH₃NCO, and NH₂CHO.
So they detected molecules with 5-10 atoms. Sugar has like 40 atoms and is one of the simplest molecules in a cell. A typical fat like a hundred. A human chromosome has like 1E11 atoms. Again: The article sounds interesting, but the press coverage is bad and the title horrible.