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National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Discovery of an Extragalactic Hot Molecular Core

| Science

ALMA image of the disk around the young star TW Hydrae
Artist’s concept image of the hot molecular core discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Credit: FRIS/Tohoku University. The figure is a derivative work of the following sources (ESO/M. Kornmesser; NASA, ESA, and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team; NASA/ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)/HEI). Original size (1.8MB)

Astronomers have discovered a ‘hot molecular core’, a cocoon of molecules surrounding a newborn massive star, for the first time outside our Galaxy. The discovery, which marks the first important step for observational studies of extragalactic hot molecular cores and challenges the hidden chemical diversity of our universe, appears in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Volume 827.

The scientists from Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the University of Tsukuba, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to observe a newborn star located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest neighbors of our Galaxy. As a result, a number of radio emission lines from various molecular gas are detected, which indicates the presence of a hot molecular core associated with the observed newborn star.

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