Where it all begins: protostars contain the icy ingredients crucial for the genesis of habitable planets.

Interstellar ices host a large fraction of volatile species, including complex molecules, and ions being part of salts. This material follows the physical evolution of protostars, since its formation and until likely when planets are formed. In my talk, I am going present the latest JWST results from the JOYS+ (James Webb Observations of Young protoStars) and Early Release Science ICE AGE, with a special focus on protostellar ices. In my presentation, I will address how JWST improved our knowledge about the chemical complexity of those ices. In particular, I'll show robust detections of ethanol, acetaldehyde and methyl formate in ices, as well as HCOO- and OCN- (Rocha et al. 2024, A&A, in press). Next, I will present the first results of the binary protostar system CED 110 IRS4A and IRS4B (Rocha et al. subm.). All of these molecules can become part of comets and other small bodies and eventually, new planetary systems when the icy material is transported inward to the planet-forming disks as the protostellar system evolves. In particular, future missions focused on exoplanets such as ARIEL may depict traces of this chemical heritage in extrasolar planets.