The James Webb Space Telescope does more than give us jaw-dropping pictures of the cosmos.
While the eye candy is great, it’s not the only thing that the JWST can do. In fact, the telescope is armed with a host of instruments to gather a treasure trove of scientific data about the universe around us.
JWST image of the Orion Nebula where the planetary disk containing CH3+ was spotted by astrophysicists.Berné and his fellow researchers discovered one such molecule—called methyl cation —using data gathered by the JWST of a planet-forming disk in the Orion Nebula roughly 1,350 lightyears away. For more than 40 years, scientists have suspected that CH3+ existed in interstellar chemistry—but haven’t actually seen it until now.
However, Cleeves added that CH3+ is incredibly elusive because it is “formed and destroyed constantly.” That means that confirming its existence has been like hitting a moving target for astronomers for decades. The team plans to continue searching for methyl cation and the molecules it produces using radio telescopes. Berné added that the researchers are also interested in using the JWST further in order to study the molecule at a quantum level.
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