ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 28 (UPI) -- NASA's new Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered icy organic materials sprinkled throughout several planet-forming discs around distant stars.
The materials, icy dust particles coated with water, methanol and carbon dioxide, could help explain the origin of icy planetoids such as comets, said scientists at the University of Rochester. Comets are thought to have endowed Earth with some of its water and many of its biogenic, life-enabling materials.
The scientists surveyed five very young stars in the constellation Taurus, about 420 light-years away from Earth. Previous studies identified similar organic materials in space, but this is the first time they were seen unambiguously in the dust making up planet-forming discs.
Spitzer also discovered two of the farthest and faintest planet-forming discs ever observed. The discs surround two of more than 300 newborn stars uncovered for the first time in a new image of the dusty stellar nursery called RCW 49. It is approximately 13,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
