Deep inside a dust-choked galaxy, astronomers have uncovered a chemical environment far more complex than expected.

“Our findings suggest that Jupiter’s moons did not form as chemically pristine worlds,” Mousis said. “Instead, they may have accreted, or accumulated, a significant inventory of COMs at birth, ...

Recent simulations explore how complex organic molecules may form and be delivered to Europa and Ganymede via Jupiter’s ...

Almost half a century ago, a remarkable molecule called metallocene took center stage in chemistry, earning Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer the Nobel Prize. These organic compounds, made of ...

Chemists from St. Petersburg University has developed a new family of luminescent iridium complexes that, for the first time, realize a unique mechanism of photoactivated proton transfer. In the ...

For nearly two decades Enceladus, a 500-kilometer-wide moon of Saturn, has been a top target in the hunt for extraterrestrial life. In 2005, shortly after arriving in orbit around the ringed planet, ...

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star, suggesting once again that the ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Ten years ago, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe pulled up alongside a dusty, icy lump the size of a mountain. The probe would ...

Far from Earth's hustle and bustle, in a hostile environment dominated by cold and a barely perceptible atmosphere, remnants of a distant past have been unearthed. These carbon chains rekindle hopes ...

The new ALMA observations reveal that the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star MWC 480 [1] contains large amounts of methyl cyanide (CH3CN), a complex carbon-based molecule. There is enough ...