Astronomers recently searched the gas cloud of a yet-unborn star for a chemical that may seed future planets with the basic ingredients for life.
Astronomer Yuxin Lin and colleagues found an organic molecule called methanimine scattered throughout a dense clump of gas and dust 554 light-years away. The cloud, called L1544 and found within the Taurus Molecular Cloud, will eventually become a star with a system of planets, and if Lin and colleagues are right, those exoplanets may form with a "starter kit" of organic molecules like methanimine — courtesy of chemical reactions that are going on right now in the cold, dormant molecular cloud.
