A specific carbon molecule may explain a faint glow James Webb sees in space
Scientists think a molecule called hexahydropyrene creates part of a faint infrared glow seen in a star-forming cloud. They measured its light fingerprint in the lab and matched it to what the James Webb Space Telescope sees.
Why it matters
Space is full of carbon-based molecules, the same family of carbon rings found in soot and smoke on Earth. Knowing exactly which ones exist helps us understand how the raw material for planets and life gets built. This work is one careful step toward reading that chemistry, though the match is a proposal that other scientists will still test.
Who's behind it: Karine Demyk, Christine Joblin and colleagues, Institute of Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP), Toulouse, France.
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