Detection of Methanol Shows Comets are Forming in Distant Solar System

Astronomers announced today that they have found the organic molecule methyl alcohol, or methanol, in the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disk. This is the first such detection of this chemical compound in a young planet-forming disk. Because methanol forms on the icy coatings of small dust grains, this discovery provides a window into the region where comets likely are forming. "When looking at methanol vapor in the TW Hydrae disk, we're probing the precursors of exo-comets," says study co-author Karin Oberg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The protoplanetary disk around the young star TW Hydrae is the closest known example to Earth, at a distance of only about 175 light-years. As such, it is an ideal target for astronomers to study disks in detail. This system is about 10 million years old, and resembles how our solar system looked more than four billion years ago.