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A flying observatory identified the first type of molecule that formed in the universe after the Big Bang.
Helium hydride – a combination of helium and hydrogen – was detected about 3,000 light years from Earth by the stratospheric observatory for the first time. NASA Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The molecule was found in a planetary nebula, NGC 7027, which is the dusty residue of a sun-like star.
For hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bangthe universe was too hot and too full of radiation for atoms to bind. At that time, only a few types of atoms existed, including hydrogen, helium and lithium. However, the new study shows that 100,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough to allow helium and hydrogen to combine, forming the molecule called helium hydride.
Related: The universe: the Big Bang now in 10 easy steps
Scientists have detected the first molecule in the universe, helium hydride, in a distant planetary nebula called NGC 7027.
(Image: © NASA / SOFIA / L. Proudfit / D.Rutter)
Although helium hydride was produced and tested in the laboratory, this discovery marks the first time that the molecule is detected in the space – which highlights the chemistry of the first universe, according to a statement by NASA.
"This molecule was hiding there, but we needed the right instruments to make the observations in the right position – and SOFIA was able to do it perfectly," Harold Harolde, director of the SOFIA Science Center in Silicon Valley, California , says in the statement.
Once the universe cooled down, the hydrogen atoms began to interact with helium hydride, creating molecular hydrogen, paving the way for the formation of hydrogen atoms. ;stars. From that moment, the stars created the other elements of the cosmos, according to the statement.
"The lack of evidence of the very existence of helium hydride in interstellar space has been a dilemma for astronomy for decades," said Rolf Guesten, lead author of the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy study in Bonn, Germany.
NGC 7027 is a place of interest for helium hydride since the late 1970s. The ultraviolet radiation and heat of the aging star has led scientists to think that the environment would be conducive to the formation of helium hydride. However, astronomers have been unable to confirm this theory until now.
the SOFIA is a telescope flying over a Boeing 747-SP aircraft at a maximum altitude of 45,000 feet, where its observations are not disturbed by interference from the Earth's atmosphere. SOFIA returns to Earth after each flight, allowing scientists to regularly update the instrument with the latest technologies. One of the most recent enhancements is to add a specific channel to detect helium hydride signatures, which did not have previous telescopes.
"This flexibility allows us to improve the observations and answer the most pressing questions that scientists wish to answer," said Naseem Rangwala, deputy project scientist for SOFIA, in the statement.
Their discoveries were published on April 17 in the journal Nature.
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