Icy Bodies

Icy objects such as comets may have helped start life on Earth by delivering water and carbon-based molecules to the young planet. Because putting something on ice doesn't necessarily keep it from changing: a new study finds that even in frigid, deep space environments, simple hydrocarbon molecules can react to become more complex ones. The process even works when temperatures drop to near absolute zero. But just what kind of organic molecules would exist on the icy bodies of a forming solar system? Researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, investigated how organic molecules might evolve toward greater complexity even in the cold of interstellar space.