A Sydney PhD student has recreated a tiny piece of the Universe inside a bottle in her lab, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed.
Linda Losurdo, candidate in materials and plasma physics in the School of Physics, has used a simple mix of gases – nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene – to mimic the harsh and dynamic environments around stars and supernova remnants.
By subjecting these gases to intense electrical energy, she generated carbon-rich “cosmic dust” similar to the material found drifting between stars and embedded in comets, asteroids and meteorites.
Her results are published in The Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.
That composition features carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen – collectively known as CHON molecules – which are central to many organic substances essential for life.
“We no longer have to wait for an asteroid or comet to come to Earth to understand their histories,” Ms Losurdo said. “You can build analogue environments in the laboratory and reverse engineer their structure using the infrared fingerprints.
Cosmic dust is known to form in extreme astrophysical environments, where molecules are constantly bombarded by ions and electrons. Scientists can identify this dust in space because it emits a distinctive infrared signal – a molecular fingerprint if you will, that reveals its chemical structure.
The dust produced in Ms Losurdo’s experiments showed the same tell-tale infrared signatures, confirming the laboratory process closely mirrors what happens in space.
