Scientists chip away at secrets of planet formation, origin of life in bevy of new research - Space.com

A new set of 20 papers published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series shares results from a research program called Molecules with ALMA at Planet-forming Scales (MAPS), which uses the powerful facility to study protoplanetary disks.

One of the new papers maps the presence of more than a dozen organic molecules throughout five different protoplanetary disks.

"These planet-forming disks are teeming with organic molecules, some which are implicated in the origins of life here on Earth," Karin Öberg, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and principal investigator for MAPS, said in a statement.

The maps don't only show that organic compounds exist in protoplanetary disks, they show that the distribution of such ingredients varies.

So, two planets forming in different regions of the same protoplanetary disk could end up with vastly different supplies of these compounds.

"Our maps reveal it matters a great deal where in a disk a planet forms," Öberg said.

"Two planets can form around the same star and have very different organic inventories, and therefore predispositions to life.".

In addition to locating different ingredients, the research also identified compounds built with deuterium, which is a form of hydrogen twice as heavy as the most commonly found flavor of that element.

Another segment of the MAPS research focused on the precursors of massive Jupiter-like planets, in which elements like carbon and oxygen seemed to be much rarer than compounds like methane.

"Our findings suggest that many gas giants may form with extremely oxygen-poor (carbon-rich) atmospheres, challenging current expectations of planet compositions," Arthur Bosman, an astronomer at the University of Michigan and lead author of one of the papers, said in a different statement.