Astronomers have discovered complex organic molecules in a dust disk surrounding a distant star named V883 Orionis. These molecules are essential for life and suggest that the chemical ingredients of life form in space and spread to new planets. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers found 17 types of these molecules, including ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile, about 1,305 light-years away in the Orion constellation.
V883 Orionis is a young star, only 500,000 years old, in its early stages of building planets. In comparison, our sun is about 4.6 billion years old! Complex organic molecules, which have more than five atoms including carbon, have been found near star-forming regions before. But this is the first time ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile—key precursors to amino acids and DNA—have been tentatively detected in such a disk.
This discovery might fill a gap in understanding how life’s building blocks evolve among stars and planets. “Our finding shows a direct link between these early chemicals and fully formed planetary systems,” said Abubakar Fadul from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA).
Stars form when dense regions in clouds of gas and dust collapse due to gravity. This creates a protostar, which builds up mass until it can ignite nuclear fusion. As the star forms, surrounding material flattens into a protoplanetary disk, where planets eventually appear. Historically, scientists believed complex molecules couldn’t survive the intense radiation during this phase. Recently, though, researchers like Kamber Schwarz suggest that these molecules are inherited from earlier stages and can still form during the protoplanetary disk phase.
This means the conditions for life and its building blocks may be more widespread in the universe, not just tied to specific planets. Cold conditions favor chemical reactions that create these complex molecules. They can hide in icy dust, becoming available only when heated by the star’s energy. Observations from our solar system show this; comets from the outer regions get warm and emit materials when they approach the sun.
The ALMA telescope is key to these discoveries. It previously identified water in V883 Orionis’s disk in 2016. The current findings excite researchers but also highlight that more exploration is needed. “We haven’t yet fully analyzed all the data,” Schwarz noted. “Higher resolution observations may uncover even more complex molecules.” Understanding these processes might not only provide insight into our solar system’s origins but also help in the search for life beyond Earth.
The team’s research can be found as a preprint on the [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01109). As they investigate further, scientists are curious about what else might be out there.
