The protoplanetary disc surrounding new born star TW Hydrae is the nearest known planet forming disc from our planet. Now researchers have reportedly discovered methyl alcohol, or methanol, an essential to life organic molecule in the gaseous disc. This is the first time that methanol has been detected in a protoplanetary disc.
An international team of scientists discovered the signs of gaseous methanol surrounding TW Hydrae, located at distance of about 170 light years away, with the help of Chile's Atacama large Millimeter/Submillimeter (ALMA) telescope. Methyl alcohol was found on the protoplanetary disc's minute dust grains, from which the researchers felt it was released in gaseous form.
"Methanol in gaseous form in the disc is an unambiguous indicator of rich organic chemical processes at an early stage of star and planet formation," said Ryan A. Loomis, researcher from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The result has an effect on our understanding of how organic matter accumulates in very young planetary systems".
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