Molecular Processing in the Disks of Massive Stars

Illustration of a dusty disc rotating around a massive newborn star that’s about 40 times the size of the Sun. SOFIA found the inner regions of two of these kinds of discs are filled with organic molecules that are important for life as we know it. These include water, ammonia, methane, and acetylene — which is a chemical building block to larger and more complex organic molecules — illustrated in the call out.

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