Detection of CO$_2$ ice in the planetary nebula NGC 6302

Charmi Bhatt (1; 2); Simon W. Cao (1); Jan Cami (1; 2); Nicholas Clark (1); Pascale Ehrenfreund (3; 4); Els Peeters (1; 2); Mikako Matsuura (5); G. C. Sloan (6; 7); Harriet L. Dinerstein (8); Patrick Kavanagh (9); Kevin Volk (6); Isabel Aleman (10); Michael J. Barlow (11); Kay Justannont (12); Kathleen E. Kraemer (13); Joel H. Kastner (14; 15; 16); Francisca Kemper (17; 18; 19); Hektor Monteiro (5; 20); Raghvendra Sahai (21); N. C. Sterling (22); Jeremy R. Walsh (23); L. B. F. M. Waters (24; 25); and Albert Zijlstra (26) ((1) Department of Physics; Astronomy; University of Western Ontario; London; Ontario; Canada; (2) Institute for Earth; Space Exploration; University of Western Ontario; London; Ontario; Canada; (3) Leiden Observatory; Leiden University; Leiden; The Netherlands; (4) Space Policy Institute; George Washington University; Washington DC; USA; (5) Cardiff Hub for Astrophysics Research; Technology; School of Physics; Astronomy; Cardiff University; Cardiff; UK; (6) Space Telescope Science Institute; Baltimore; MD; USA; (7) Department of Physics; Astronomy; University of North Carolina; Chapel Hill; NC; USA; (8) Department of Astronomy; University of Texas at Austin; Austin; TX; USA; (9) Department of Physics; Maynooth University; Maynooth; Ireland; (10) Laboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica; Itajuba; MG; Brazil; (11) Department of Physics; Astronomy; University College London; London; UK; (12) Chalmers University of Technology; Onsala Space Observatory; Onsala; Sweden; (13) Institute for Scientific Research; Boston College; Chestnut Hill; MA; USA; (14) Center for Imaging Science; Rochester Institute of Technology; Rochester; NY; USA; (15) School of Physics; Astronomy; Rochester Institute of Technology; Rochester; NY; USA; (16) Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics; Rochester Institute of Technology; Rochester; NY; USA; (17) Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (ICE; CSIC); Barcelona; Spain; (18) ICREA; Barcelona; Spain; (19) Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC); Barcelona; Spain; (20) Instituto de Fisica e Quimica; Universidade Federal de Itajuba; Itajuba; MG; Brazil; (21) Jet Propulsion Laboratory; California Institute of Technology; Pasadena; CA; USA; (22) University of West Georgia; Carrollton; GA; USA; (23) European Southern Observatory; Garching; Germany; (24) Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP; Radboud University; Nijmegen; The Netherlands; (25) SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research; Leiden; The Netherlands; (26) Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics; Department of Physics; Astronomy; The University of Manchester; Manchester; UK)

arXiv:2602.22366·astro-ph.GA·April 15, 2026

Detection of CO$_2$ ice in the planetary nebula NGC 6302

Charmi Bhatt (1, 2), Simon W. Cao (1), Jan Cami (1, 2), Nicholas Clark (1), Pascale Ehrenfreund (3, 4), Els Peeters (1, 2), Mikako Matsuura (5), G. C. Sloan (6, 7), Harriet L. Dinerstein (8), Patrick Kavanagh (9), Kevin Volk (6), Isabel Aleman (10), Michael J. Barlow (11)

PDF

TL;DR

Using JWST/MIRI, we detected crystalline CO$_2$ ice in the hostile environment of a planetary nebula, revealing unexpected ice chemistry in evolved stellar surroundings.

Contribution

First detection of CO$_2$ ice in a planetary nebula's dusty torus, showing ice survival in intense UV radiation environments.

Findings

01

CO$_2$ ice exhibits a double-peak profile indicating crystallinity.

02

Gas-phase CO$_2$ is over ten times more abundant than ice.

03

Ice chemistry plays a significant role in planetary nebulae environments.

Abstract

Using JWST/MIRI observations, we report the detection of CO $_{2}$ ice in the dusty torus of the planetary nebula NGC 6302, an environment generally considered hostile to fragile molecular species and ices due to intense UV irradiation. This detection accompanies cold (20-50 K) gas-phase CO $_{2}$ along the same sightlines. The ice absorption profile exhibits a double-peak profile, a characteristic of pure, crystalline CO $_{2}$ ice. The CO $_{2}$ gas-to-ice ratio is more than an order of magnitude higher than in young stellar objects, pointing to distinct ice formation or processing mechanisms in evolved stellar environments. This discovery demonstrates that the dusty torus provides sufficient shielding to harbour ice chemistry, and that ice-mediated surface reactions must be incorporated into chemical models of planetary nebulae.

Peer Reviews

No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.

Videos

No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.