Found the first molecule formed at the beginning of the universe

The Little Mohammed Al Gharbi

After decades of exhaustive research, scientists have found in our galaxy the first molecule to form the universe.

The discovery - made using NASA's Infrared Astronomy Observatory - is a key building block in scientists' understanding of how the universe has evolved over billions of years.

During the early stages of the universe, about 13.78 billion years ago, there were only a few atoms in the middle of a dense mix and boil from subatomic particles.

According to scientists, this situation continued about 100 thousand years after the Big Bang when the temperature dropped below 4000 kV (3726 ° C), allowing the first chemical reaction in the universe to represent the reaction of hydrogen and helium to make the first molecule called helium hydride.

Helium hydride
Scientists believe that helium hydride should be present in some parts of the modern universe, but has never been discovered in space despite the strenuous efforts made to do so.

German scientists have found this molecule in a planetary nebula called NGC 7027, about 3000 light-years away from the constellation of the swan.

"The lack of evidence of the presence of helium hydride in interstellar space has been a problem of astronomy for decades," said Rolf Gasten of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany and lead author of the study, which published the discovery.

The Helium Hydride molecule is a charged molecule that is not easily formed due to the helium properties classified in the list of noble gases that are difficult to interact with any other type of atom.

Search exhaustive
Since 1925 scientists have been able to create this molecule in the laboratory by "forcing" helium to share one of its electrons with the hydrogen ion.

In the late 1970s, scientists studying the planetary nebula called NGC 7027 believed that this environment could be an incubator of the helium hydride molecule. Ultraviolet rays and heat emitted from a pyramid star create favorable conditions for the formation of this molecule, but their observations were inconclusive For the absence of monitoring devices using a specific technique to select helium hydride signal from a mixture of other particles in the nebula.

Scientists have provided the appropriate means by 2016 to the Sofia Observatory for help, the infrared observatory, the world's largest portable observatory on a Boeing 747, Upgradeable by changing its old tools with new ones and installing the latest technology on it.

A unique German instrument was installed on the observatory to receive terahertz frequencies, tuned to receive the frequency of the helium hydride molecule as the radio was tuned to the correct station, and scientists soon received the first unequivocal signal of what was believed to be the first molecule ever to be in space after the Big Bang.

The discovery - published in the journal Nature - is an essential part of scientists' understanding of early universe chemistry and how it evolved over billions of years into complex chemistry as it is today.