Arshia M. Jacob

A tiny charged top is locked inside a freezer the size of a pea. The temperature is four degrees above absolute zero, and thermal jitter is nearly halted. This top is a molecular ion — OH⁺ — stripped of an electron, leaving a positive charge.

In a dense molecular cloud, at the edge of glowing gas, an invisible assembly line is at work. It takes simple scraps — single atoms and light pairs — and glues them together step by step into long carbon chains and rings. The first piece of this assembly line has long eluded our eyes. Now it has been found.