There is a faint nebula near the center of the Milky Way, and ice complicates the mystery of why this nebula did not form stars.
The Webb Space Telescope detected a large amount of carbon monoxide ice near the center of the Milky Way in a huge cloud of molecular gas, nicknamed "The Brick," designated G0253+0.016, located in the ** molecular region, is a huge nebula convergence area, with a total mass 60 million times that of the Sun. Many of these clouds are busy forming stars, but why the "bricks" have not yet begun to form stars is still a mystery. The possible explanation is that the cloud is young, which has not yet had a chance to form stars;Another explanation is that the gas inside is too turbulent, or supported by a magnetic field, to collapse and therefore cannot collapse, which often forms stars.
**Molecular area**. source：nasa/chandra/hst/esa/stsci/q. d. wang/spitzer/churchwell et al.）
Webb discovered that deepening the mystery was that there was 1 ton of carbon monoxide ice inside the cloud. Carbon monoxide ice has previously been detected condensed by dust particles in the center of the Milky Way, but ice is generally difficult to detect in the interstellar medium, so no one really knows how much ice there is in the nebula at the center of the Milky Way. That's why astronomers were so surprised when Webb's near-infrared camera (NIRCAM) detected so much ice, with researchers saying that the observations showed that ice was so common that it would have to be taken into account for every future observation.
Star formation begins in very cold conditions, and the temperature of molecular gases drops above absolute zero. Despite the abundance of ice, Webb's measured temperatures were surprisingly warm compared to other molecular clouds. The next step is to use Webb to discover whether there is still ice in the nebula and other nebulae near the center of the Milky Way, for example, the relative levels of carbon monoxide, water and carbon dioxide, and complex molecules are not yet known, but through spectroscopy, it will be possible to measure and understand how the chemical composition of the nebula changes over time.
The right region is a thermoplasma in which hydrogen glows under the action of massive star energy, g0253+0.016 is a dark area shielded by hot plasma, glowing bluer along the edges, and the blue appearance is due to carbon monoxide ice blocking red light, and only blue light can pass through. （source：adam ginsburg）
The study of the center of the Milky Way may have implications for cosmology, with the formation of stars at the center of the Milky Way generally considered to be the closest mirror to the formation of stars in the early universe, and some theories suggest that supermassive black holes are formed by the gravitational collapse of extremely massive molecular clouds. However, there is a problem with this theory, which is what prevents the collapse of molecular clouds** and the formation of a large number of stars, rather than black holes. Maybe in G0253+0.016 This kind of opaque nebula finds clues. The results were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The first image is a schematic diagram, **pixabay).