A mere 630 light years away from Freo

Freo Today. 2 February 2023. A few days ago, an international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope obtained an in-depth inventory of the deepest, coldest ices measured to date in a molecular cloud. In addition to simple ices like water, the team was able to identify frozen forms of a wide range of molecules, from carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, and methane, to the simplest complex organic molecule, methanol. This is the most comprehensive census to date of the icy ingredients available to make future generations of stars and planets, before they are heated during the formation of young stars.
This image from the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light-years away*. The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, center) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them. Credit for the pic to NASA, ESA, CSA, and M. Zamani (ESA). (* A light-year is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers. We’ll let you do the maths!)