Rosa Rubicondior: Abiogenesis News - Organic Precursors to Life Detected In Deep Space.

This artist’s impression shows the planet-forming disc around the star V883 Orionis. In the outermost part of the disc volatile gases are frozen out as ice, which contains complex organic molecules. An outburst of energy from the star heats the inner disc to a temperature that evaporates the ice and releases the complex molecules, enabling astronomers to detect it. The inset image shows the chemical structure of complex organic molecules detected and presumed in the protoplanetary disc (from left to right): propionitrile (ethyl cyanide), glycolonitrile, alanine, glycine, ethylene glycol, acetonitrile (methyl cyanide).

The evolution of life may have its origins in outer space

If you listen to creationists, you might be persuaded to believe that the formation of inorganic chemicals—often deliberately conflated with 'life' to evoke an emotional reaction—is, for all practical purposes, impossible without the intervention of a supernatural intelligence. This is, of course, nothing more than the familiar creationist fallback: the god of the gaps argument, coupled with a false dichotomy, and dressed up with a spurious veneer of mathematical ‘proof’.

But this tactic suffered yet another fatal blow recently with the publication of a study led by Abubakar Fadul of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), which reported the discovery of organic molecules in the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star V883 Orionis. This finding provides compelling evidence that the formation of prebiotic molecules can begin even before planets form—suggesting that Earth may have developed with a complement of organic compounds already present in the accretion disc from which it emerged.

An alternative, but equally plausible, hypothesis is that these molecules could have been delivered by meteorites or other interplanetary bodies.

V883 Orionis. Protostar Basics

Designation: V883 Orionis (also V883 Ori, HBC 489), situated in the constellation Orion. Its estimated distance is approximately 1,305 light‑years from Earth [1].
Type: FU Orionis–type variable protostar (FUor), currently undergoing a luminous accretion burst phase [2].
Age: Very young—around 0.5 million years, compared to our Sun’s 4.6 billion years [3].

Activity & Disk Features

Accretion Outburst: The star is actively accreting gas from its envelope, triggering a sudden luminosity increase. This heats the circumstellar disk, expanding the water snow line out to around 80 astronomical units (AU) — well beyond typical values [4].
Outflow Characteristics: ALMA maps reveal a slow (~0.65 km/s), wide (~150° opening angle) bipolar molecular outflow, inferred from CO emission, suggesting wind activity driven by the enhanced accretion [5].

Water & Organic Chemistry

Gaseous Water Detection: Unlike most protostellar disks dominated by ice, V883 Ori’s heated disk contains gas-phase water, making it observable via radio telescopes. Measurements show a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio comparable to that found in Solar System comets, suggesting the water predates the Sun and is inherited from the interstellar medium [6].
Complex Organic Molecules (COMs): Recent ALMA observations (led by Abubakar Fadul at MPIA) have identified 17 COMs, including ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile, precursors to amino acids and nucleobases. This underscores that prebiotic chemistry begins before planet formation [7].

Summary Table

Distance: ~1,300 ly (Orion constellation)
Age: ~0.5 Myr (very young)
Current Activity: FUor–type accretion burst
Disk Snow Line: Extended to ~80 AU due to heating
Water State: Sublimated to gas; H₂O/HDO ratio akin to comets
Organic Molecules: 17 COMs detected, including prebiotic species
Outflow Wind: Slow (~0.65 km/s), wide-angle molecular outflow

Why It Matters

V883 Orionis provides a rare and powerful window into how water and complex organics evolve during the early stages of star and planet formation. The protostellar outburst effectively "turns on" observation of water and complex molecules, allowing researchers to trace the chemical heritage shared between interstellar space, Solar System comets, and potentially life’s building blocks on Earth.

The discovery was published a few days ago in Astrophysical Journal Letters and covered in a news release from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

The evolution of life may have its origins in outer space
Astronomers find signs of complex organic molecules – precursors to sugars and amino acids – in a planet-forming disc.
To the point

First tentative detection of prebiotic molecules in a planet-forming disc: In the young V883 Orionis system, ALMA observations have revealed signatures of complex organic compounds such as ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile – potential precursors to sugars and amino acids.
Chemical evolution begins before planets are formed: The findings suggest that protoplanetary discs inherit and further develop complex molecules from earlier evolutionary stages, rather than forming them anew.
Evidence for universal processes in the origin of biological molecules: The building blocks of life may not be limited to local conditions but could form widely throughout the Universe under suitable circumstances.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of astronomers led by Abubakar Fadul from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has discovered complex organic molecules – including the first tentative detection of ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile – in the protoplanetary disc of the outbursting protostar V883 Orionis. These compounds are considered precursors to the building blocks of life. Comparing different cosmic environments reveals that the abundance and complexity of such molecules increase from star-forming regions to fully evolved planetary systems. This suggests that the seeds of life are assembled in space and widespread.

Astronomers have discovered complex organic molecules (COMs) in various locations associated with planet and star formation before. COMs are molecules with more than five atoms, at least one of which is carbon. Many of them are considered building blocks of life, such as amino acids and nucleic acids or their precursors. The discovery of 17 COMs in the protoplanetary disc of V883 Orionis, including ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile, provides a long-sought puzzle piece in the evolution of such molecules between the stages preceding and following the formation of stars and their planet-forming discs. Glycolonitrile is a precursor of the amino acids glycine and alanine, as well as the nucleobase adenine. The findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters today.

The assembly of prebiotic molecules begins in interstellar space

The transition from a cold protostar to a young star surrounded by a disc of dust and gas is accompanied by a violent phase of shocked gas, intense radiation and rapid gas ejection. Such energetic processes might destroy most of the complex chemistry assembled during the previous stages. Therefore, scientists had laid out a so-called ‘reset’ scenario, in which most of the chemical compounds required to evolve into life would have to be reproduced in circumstellar discs while forming comets, asteroids, and planets.

Now it appears the opposite is true. Our results suggest that protoplanetary discs inherit complex molecules from earlier stages, and the formation of complex molecules can continue during the protoplanetary disc stage.

Kamber R. Schwarz, co-author
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany.

Indeed, the period between the energetic protostellar phase and the establishment of a protoplanetary disk would, on its own, be too short for COMs to form in detectable amounts.

As a result, the conditions that predefine biological processes may be widespread rather than being restricted to individual planetary systems.

Astronomers have found the simplest organic molecules, such as methanol, in dense regions of dust and gas that predate the formation of stars. Under favourable conditions, they may even contain complex compounds comprising ethylene glycol, one of the species now discovered in V883 Orionis.

We recently found ethylene glycol could form by UV irradiation of ethanolamine, a molecule that was recently discovered in space. This finding supports the idea that ethylene glycol could form in those environments but also in later stages of molecular evolution, where UV irradiation is dominant.

Tushar Suhasaria, co-author.
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany.

More evolved agents crucial to biology, such as amino acids, sugars, and nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA, are present in asteroids, meteorites, and comets within the Solar System.

Buried in ice – resurfaced by stars
The chemical reactions that synthesize those COMs occur under cold conditions, preferably on icy dust grains that later coagulate to form larger objects. Hidden in those mixtures of rock, dust, and ice, they usually remain undetected. Accessing those molecules is only possible either by digging for them with space probes or external heating, which evaporates the ice.

In the Solar System, the Sun heats comets, resulting in impressive tails of gas and dust, or comas, essentially gaseous envelopes that surround the cometary nuclei. This way, spectroscopy – the rainbow-like dissection of light – may pick up the emissions of freed molecules. Those spectral fingerprints help astronomers to identify the molecules previously buried in ice.

A similar heating process is occurring in the V883 Orionis system. The central star is still growing by accumulating gas from the surrounding disc until it eventually ignites the fusion fire in its core. During those growth periods, the infalling gas heats up and produces intense outbursts of radiation.

These outbursts are strong enough to heat the surrounding disc as far as otherwise icy environments, releasing the chemicals we have detected.

Abubakar M. A. Fadul, first author.
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany.

Complex molecules, including ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile, radiate at radio frequencies. ALMA is perfectly suited to detect those signals.

Kamber R. Schwarz.

The MPIA astronomers were awarded access to this radio interferometer through the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which operates it in the Chilean Atacama Desert at an altitude of 5,000 metres. ALMA enabled the astronomers to pinpoint the V883 Orionis system and search for faint spectral signatures, which ultimately led to the detections.

Further challenges ahead

While this result is exciting, we still haven't disentangled all the signatures we found in our spectra. Higher resolution data will confirm the detections of ethylene glycol and glycolonitril and maybe even reveal more complex chemicals we simply haven't identified yet.

Kamber R. Schwarz.

Perhaps we also need to look at other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to find even more evolved molecules. Who knows what else we might discover?

Abubakar M. A. Fadul.

Additional information
The MPIA team involved in this study consisted of Abubakar Fadul (now at the University of Duisburg-Essen), Kamber Schwarz, and Tushar Suhasaria.

Other researchers were Jenny K. Calahan (Center for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA), Jane Huang (Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, USA), and Merel L. R. van ’t Hoff (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA).

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

Publication:
Abubakar M. A. Fadul et al 2025
A Deep Search for Ethylene Glycol and Glycolonitrile in the V883 Ori Protoplanetary Disk
ApJL 988 L44 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/adec6e

Abstract
Ethylene glycol \(\small\rm{CH}_2 \rm{(OH)CHO}\); hereafter EG) and glycolonitrile \(\small\rm{HOH}_2 \rm{CH}\); hereafter GN) are considered molecular precursors of nucleic acids. EG is a sugar alcohol and the reduced form of glycolaldehyde \(\small\rm{CH}_2 \rm{(OH)CHO}\); hereafter GA). GN is considered a key precursor of adenine formation (nucleotide) and can be a precursor of glycine (amino acid). Detections of such prebiotic molecules in the interstellar medium are increasingly common. How much of this complexity endures to the planet formation stage, and thus is already present when planets form, remains largely unknown. Here we report Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations in which we tentatively detect EG and GN in the protoplanetary disk around the outbursting protostar V883 Ori. The observed EG emission is best reproduced by a column density of \(\small 3.63_{-0.12}^{+0.11}\times 10^{16}\,\rm{cm}^{-2}\) and a temperature of at least 300 K. The observed GN emission is best reproduced by a column density of \(\small 3.37_{-0.09}^{+0.09}\times 10^{16}\,\rm{cm}^{-2}\) and a temperature of \(\small 88_{-1.2}^{+1.2}\, \rm{K}\). Comparing the abundance of EG and GN relative to methanol in V883 Ori with other objects, V883 Ori falls between hot cores and comets in terms of increasing complexity. This suggests that the buildup of prebiotic molecules continues past the hot core phase into the epoch of planet formation. Nascent planets in such environments may inherit essential building blocks for life, enhancing their potential habitability. Further observations of this protoplanetary disk at higher spectral resolution are required to resolve blended lines and to confirm these tentative detections.

1. Introduction
The ingredients for life originated in space. A key element to assessing how common life is in the Universe is understanding the extent to which the Earth inherited biotic molecules. Within our own solar system, sugars, sugar acids, amino acids, and the nucleobases, which make up DNA and RNA, have been seen in asteroids and meteorites (G. Cooper et al. 2001; D. Glavin et al. 2010; M. P. Callahan et al. 2011; Y. Oba et al. 2023; E. T. Parker et al. 2023.1; T. Koga et al. 2024; D. P. Glavin et al. 2025). Comets, which are comprised of less processed material than meteors and asteroids, have not been observed to contain the most complex molecules listed above. However, sugar acids thought to be the precursors of amino acids and nucleic acids, such as glycolaldehyde (\(\small \rm{CH}_2 \rm{(OH)CHO}\); hereafter GA) and ethylene glycol (\(\small \rm{(CH}_2 \rm{OH)}_2\); hereafter EG), have been observed in the comae of several comets (J. Crovisier et al. 2004; N. Biver et al. 2015, 2024.1; L. Le Roy et al. 2015.1). Additionally, glycine, the simplest amino acid, which is thought to form from the reaction between glycolonitrile (\(\small \rm{HOCH}_2 \rm{CN}\); hereafter GN) and ammonia (S. Zeng et al. 2019, and references therein), was detected in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) by the Rosetta mission (K. Altwegg et al. 2016).

Observations of hot dense cores in the interstellar matter (ISM) have revealed a plethora of complex organic molecules (COMs), molecules six atoms or larger containing at least one carbon atom (B. A. McGuire 2022). This includes GA, EG, and the nitrogen-bearing GN (also called hydroxyacetonitrile) among others (J. M. Hollis et al. 2000, 2002; V. M. Rivilla et al. 2017, 2022.1). This chemical complexity appears to persist in the envelopes of protostars (A. Coutens et al. 2015.2; J. K. Jørgensen et al. 2016.1; S. Zeng et al. 2019; N. F. W. Ligterink et al. 2021).

How much of this chemical complexity is preserved, enhanced, or destroyed in the protoplanetary disk remains uncertain. Shocks and heating during protostellar collapse, and as infalling gas transitions from the envelope to the protoplanetary disk, may destroy many COMs. In this “reset” scenario, the COMs seen in comets must form no earlier than the protoplanetary disk phase. Even if some chemical complexity is inherited, additional ice chemistry on dust grains within the disk can lead to increased COM abundances.

Relatively few COMs have been detected in protoplanetary disks compared to less evolved sources (C. Walsh et al. 2016.2; Y. Yamato et al. 2024.2). The difficulty of observing COMs in protoplanetary disks is twofold. First, the emission area is small. Second, disks are cold, such that many COMs are frozen out on dust grains as ices throughout much of the disk. There are two special cases that have proved conducive to detecting COMs in disks. The first is dust traps, where photodesorbed ices can be seen in the gas (N. van der Marel et al. 2021.1; A. S. Booth et al. 2024.3). The second is in FU Orionis objects during an outburst event, which heats the disk, liberating ices and increasing the area hot enough to emit (e.g., J. K. Calahan et al. 2024.4). This second approach has proved successful in detecting a plethora of molecules in the disk of V883 Ori, including COMs (M. L. R. van ’t Hoff et al. 2018; J.-E. Lee et al. 2019.1; J. J. Tobin et al. 2023.2; Y. Yamato et al. 2024.2; J.-H. Jeong et al. 2025.1). However, the more complex prebiotic species detected in the envelopes of less evolved protostars remain undetected in any protoplanetary disk.

Here we report tentative detection of EG and GN in the V883 Ori protoplanetary disk. Our observations cover a frequency range not yet explored for this object, but which has yielded tentative detections of prebiotic molecules in less evolved sources. The resulting spectrum is rich in molecular lines, as recently reported by A. M. A. Fadul et al. (2025.2). In this work, we focus on the detection of the prebiotic species. Section 2 describes the observations and data reduction. Section 3 describes the data analysis. Section 4 discusses our findings in the context of other sources. Finally, our conclusions are given in Section 5.

Abubakar M. A. Fadul et al 2025
A Deep Search for Ethylene Glycol and Glycolonitrile in the V883 Ori Protoplanetary Disk
ApJL 988 L44 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/adec6e

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by the American Astronomical Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

For creationists, discoveries like this are deeply inconvenient. They rely on the assumption that life’s basic chemical precursors—let alone life itself—are so improbable as to be effectively impossible without divine intervention. Yet here we see clear, empirical evidence that organic molecules, including those with potential relevance to prebiotic chemistry, form naturally in the early stages of planetary system development, long before any planet is habitable.

The detection of these molecules in the protoplanetary disc of V883 Orionis demonstrates that the raw ingredients for life are not rare anomalies or miraculous exceptions, but rather the routine by-products of star and planet formation. This directly undermines one of the central planks of creationist pseudoscience: the false claim that complex organic chemistry must be the result of intentional design.

As with so many findings in modern astronomy, chemistry, and biology, the more we learn about the universe, the more natural processes prove to be sufficient to explain phenomena once attributed to supernatural causes. The creationist strategy of plugging gaps in our knowledge with a god becomes less and less tenable with each new discovery—and the space for those gaps continues to shrink.

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