Cosmic radiation brought to light: Researchers measure ionization in dark cloud for the first time

Where starlight doesn’t reach, new things are born: For the first time, an international research team has directly measured the effect of cosmic radiation in a cold molecular cloud. The observation shows how charged high-energy particles influence the gas in these lightless regions where stars are formed. Dr. Brandt Gaches, head of the Emmy Noether Group Towards the Next Generation in Cosmic Ray Astrochemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen, was part of the effort to propose and observe these effects with the James Webb Space Telescope and provided support through astrochemical models of cosmic-ray chemistry. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.