Webb Telescope's First Detection of Crucial Carbon Molecule in Deep Space.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected a new carbon compound, methyl cation, in space for the first time. This molecule is crucial in forming complex carbon-based molecules and was found in a young star system in the Orion Nebula. The discovery could enhance our understanding of life's potential development beyond Earth. Carbon compounds form the foundations of all known life, and as such are of particular interest to scientists working to understand both how life developed on Earth and how it could potentially develop elsewhere in our universe.