hydrocarbon

Deep inside a sub-Neptune, where pressures reach a hundred thousand bars and temperatures hit four thousand degrees, rock behaves like boiling soup. Heavy vapors of silicon and magnesium rise, cool, and fall back as a rain of solid particles.

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.

In dark interstellar clouds where new stars are born, chemistry starts with a tiny particle — the trihydrogen ion (H₃⁺). It collides with other atoms and sets off a cascade of reactions that build ever more complex molecules. For a long time, it was thought that the main reaction producing it, H₂⁺ colliding with H₂, only happens in the gas phase.

In the black depths of space, on the surfaces of tiny icy dust grains, a quiet construction is underway. There, where temperatures drop to near absolute zero and harsh radiation abounds, the ordinary amino acid glycine, the simplest protein building block, links up with itself.

A planet the size of Neptune, but glowing white-hot. Beneath the clouds lies an ocean of magma capable of absorbing an entire hydrogen atmosphere. The new SEAMIST model is the first to trace how such dissolution changes a planet's fate from birth to old age. The big surprise is the mechanism of catastrophic boiling.

In the heart of the Milky Way, in the cloud G+0.693, astronomers caught a sweet signal — emission lines of erythrulose, a simple sugar with four carbon atoms and four oxygen atoms.

Using the JWST space telescope, astronomers conducted a chemical analysis of the centaur Chiron, an icy body from the fringes of the Solar System. It turns out its gas activity resembles a layered cake. Carbon dioxide evaporates from the surface, forming a top crust.

For nearly half a century, astronomers have been searching for glycine, the simplest amino acid and one of the fundamental building blocks of proteins, in the interstellar medium.

In a crystal of water and caustic cesium, oxygen and cesium atoms sit in place like beads in a rigid lattice. Hydrogen atoms behave differently: they are like passengers constantly changing seats. In this layered material, each oxygen is linked to three neighbors via hydrogen bridges, forming a honeycomb-like pattern.

In cold clouds between the stars, dust grains are coated with ice, like windows covered with frost in winter. On this icy crust, chemical reactions take place that do not occur in gas. One such reaction is the encounter between a carbon atom and a nitrogen molecule.

Hydrogen is an ideal fuel: when used, it only produces water, not carbon dioxide. The trouble is that hydrogen is the lightest gas, its molecules leak out of any container. Right now, cars store hydrogen in heavy tanks under extreme pressure, canceling out weight benefits. Researchers bypassed the problem without high pressure.

A water molecule, finding itself near a carbon ring, starts to vibrate, and immediately falls under the sway of an invisible conductor. The ring's electron cloud, like a maestro, dampens some vibrations while amplifying others.

Plain water in a glass is clear and calm. But if you add tiny carbon dots made from sugar and citric acid in an ordinary microwave, the water starts to glow when a charged particle flies through it.

Conventional solar panels convert light into electricity, but here light splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean fuel, but the process is slow. To speed it up, helper substances that donate electrons are added. Often this is alcohol, but it's a shame to waste it.

Comet 3I/ATLAS was spotted when it entered the Solar System from interstellar space. The James Webb Telescope split the light from its gas cloud into a rainbow, a spectrum, and in this pattern, the lines of rare molecules with deuterium (heavy hydrogen) appeared.

At the dawn of Earth, about four billion years ago, the planet was a harsh place: a dim sun, frequent asteroid impacts, and air without oxygen. Under such conditions, the first steps of life seem almost impossible.

An icy rock is flying through the Solar System on an open trajectory — coming in from interstellar space, swinging around the Sun, and heading back into the dark.

In a dark, cold cloud between the stars, a dust grain a thousandth of a millimeter across catches light molecules. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen stick to its surface like raindrops to glass and react. After a few steps, methanol is produced — the same alcohol found in windshield washer fluid.

In a cloud where massive stars are being born, there is a hot, dense core. Like a crowded kitchen where the heat of the stove makes smells evaporate, here the warmth from young stars evaporates molecules from the surface of cosmic dust grains.

In the dark, cold clouds where stars are born, dust grains are covered with an icy crust. Across this crust, like on a winter road, individual atoms wander slowly. Calculations show that it is precisely these wandering oxygen and nitrogen atoms that kick off the assembly of the HNSO molecule — a compound of hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen.

In a jar of oily liquid float millions of tiny magnetic grains: each about the size of a bacterium. Switch on a magnet, and the grains, like obedient little soldiers, line up into long threads. But why do they form threads rather than clumps? It turns out it's not just about magnetism.

Astronomers using James Webb and spectroscopy (splitting light into colors) peered through dust into the center of galaxy IRAS 07251-0248. There they discovered benzene, acetylene, methane — the same hydrocarbons found in gasoline and plastics.

Deep beneath our feet, at the very center of Earth, lies a solid iron core. But it's not pure iron — there are lighter elements too, such as hydrogen. Exactly how hydrogen is distributed within the core has long been a mystery.

Dark matter is invisible, but you can catch it on the rebound. Hydrogen embedded in a carbon film acts like a billiard ball: when a dark matter particle hits it, the proton flies out. That ejection is the signal you're looking for.

Young stars are surrounded by disks of gas and dust, like construction sites for future planets. From this material, rocky worlds and gas giants will eventually assemble. So the chemical composition of the disk directly determines what the planets will be like.

Chemistry has two worlds: in one, the catalyst is a solid particle and the reaction happens on its surface; in the other, it's a dissolved molecule where everything occurs around a single metal center. These worlds rarely meet. But in a new study, they collide. The researchers took iron oxide, a black powder used in magnetic tapes, and scattered single rhodium atoms across its surface.

Dissolve a few salts and formaldehyde in a glass of water. After a while, the liquid spontaneously separates: droplets with membranes appear, like tiny bubbles. Inside each droplet, chemical transformations occur, and the droplet itself grows, absorbing material from the surrounding solution. These droplets are not just bubbles.

A rocky planet around another star is like a dish in an oven. The star sets the temperature: the farther away, the colder.

In every leaf, in the light, a factory works that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen goes into the air we breathe, and the plant uses the hydrogen for food. The heart of this factory is a protein complex with four manganese atoms and one calcium atom.