Scientists are tackling the secrets of planet formation, the cause of life in a whole series of new

Twenty new scientific papers use the data collected by a host of radiotelephones perched in the Chilean desert to unravel the mysteries of the form of planets.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) specializes in studying what scientists call protoplanetary discs, the clutter of materials that surround young stars and eventually blend into the mass to construct planets. While scientists are doing a lot of work analyzing already formed exoplanets, studying protoplanetary disks also offers an opportunity to see all these ingredients mixed and spread out.

A new set of 20 papers published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series shares results from a research program called Molecules with ALMA at Planet-forming Scales (MAPS), which uses the powerful facility to study protoplanetary disks.

One of the new documents maps over a dozen organic molecules on five different protoplanetary disks. Organic molecules that contain carbon are particularly interesting for scientists trying to understand how life starts.

"These planet-forming disks are teeming with organic molecules, some which are implicated in the origins of life here on Earth," Karin Öberg, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and principal investigator for MAPS, said in a statement. "It's fascinating; the chemicals in each disc will eventually influence the kind of planets that form and determine whether or not the planets can accommodate life."

The maps show that organic compounds exist in protoplanetary discs, but they also show that the distribution of these ingredients is variable. Therefore, two planets forming in different regions of the same protoplanetary disk may find themselves with very other supplies of these compounds.

"Our maps reveal that it is imperative to know where a planet forms in a disc," said Mr. Öberg. "Two planets may form around a single star and have very different organic inventories, and thus predispositions to life."

In addition to locating different ingredients, the research also identified compounds built with deuterium, a form of hydrogen twice as heavy as the most commonly found flavor of that element. Research has suggested that deuterium levels vary throughout a disk, with much less of the atom found closer to the star at the core of the disk.

Scientists working on the search suite could also detect the earliest signs of a planet merging from a disk. Again, however, it is often challenging. "It's like trying to see a fish underwater," said Richard Teague, an astronomer also at CfA who is in charge of a segment of the MAPS project.

"We know they are here, but we cannot look so far. "There are subtle signs on the surface of the water, such as ripples and waves." So we have to look for subtle signs on the surface of the water, like ripples and waves."

Another segment of the MAPS research focused on the precursors of massive Jupiter-like planets, where elements such as carbon and oxygen seemed much rarer than compounds such as methane.

"Our findings suggest that many gas giants may form with extremely oxygen-poor (carbon-rich) atmospheres, challenging current expectations of planet compositions," Arthur Bosman, an astronomer at the University of Michigan and lead author of one of the papers, said in a different statement.

Overall, research shows much more to learn about what surrounds young stars, how planets form and what this means for the universe, and the prospects for life within it.

"We're hoping to use ALMA to search for the next stepping stones of chemical complexity in these disks," John Ilee, an astronomer at the University of Leeds in the U.K. and lead researcher on a new MAPS study, said in another statement. "If we detect them, we will get a clearer understanding of how the raw ingredients of life can be assembled around other stars."