Related papers: Prebiotic Fatty Acid Vesicles through Photochemica…
Since the Hadean era of Earth's history, peptides/proteins and RNA have undergone a complex evolutionary trajectory. Originating from simple monomeric units, these molecules evolved abiotically under various biochemical and biophysical…
Low-mass protostars are the extrasolar analogues of the natal Solar System. Sophisticated physicochemical models are used to simulate the formation of two protoplanetary discs from the initial prestellar phase, one dominated by viscous…
The earliest atmospheres of rocky planets originate from extensive volatile release during magma ocean epochs that occur during assembly of the planet. These establish the initial distribution of the major volatile elements between…
Analysis of the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) stellar and solar occultations at Titan to date include 12 species: N$_{2}$ (nitrogen), CH$_{4}$ (methane), C$_{2}$H$_{2}$ (acetylene), C$_{2}$H$_{4}$ (ethylene),…
Building blocks of life such as amino acids, nucleobases, and fatty acids are central to prebiotic chemistry and represent key targets in the search for planetary biosignatures. In planetary materials, biomolecules typically occur at trace…
Molecular clouds (MCs) are highly structured and ``turbulent''. Colliding gas streams of atomic hydrogen have been suggested as a possible source of MCs, imprinting the filamentary structure as a consequence of dynamical and thermal…
Numerical simulations show the formation of self-gravitating primordial disks during the assembly of the first structures in the Universe, in particular during the formation of Pop.~III and supermassive stars. Their subsequent evolution is…
By considering the structure of holococcoliths (calcite plates that cover holococcolithophores, a haploid phase of the coccolithophore life cycle) as a photonic structure, we apply a discrete dipolar approximation to study the light…
We present a study of the photochemistry of abiotic habitable planets with anoxic CO$_2$-N$_2$ atmospheres. Such worlds are representative of early Earth, Mars and Venus, and analogous exoplanets. H$_2$O photodissociation controls the…
The biological molecules delivered to Earth on the board of meteorites and comets were called one of the possible causes of the origin of life. Therefore, our understanding of the routes of formation of biomolecules in space should shed the…
The formation of asteroids, comets and planets occurs in the interior of protoplanetary disks during the early phase of star formation. Consequently, the chemical composition of the disk might shape the properties of the emerging planetary…
(Abridged) Galaxies form in hierarchically assembling dark matter halos. With cosmological three dimensional adaptive mesh refinement simulations, we explore in detail the virialization of baryons in the concordance cosmology, including…
We discuss the theory of coupled ionization--dissociation fronts produced when molecular clouds are exposed to $\lambda < 1110$\AA\ radiation from hot stars. A steady, composite structure is developed, which generally includes an ionized…
We describe a mechanism that explains the formation of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbyls from hydrogenated graphene/graphite; hard C-C bonds are weakened and broken by the synergistic effect of chemisorbed hydrogen and high temperature…
Protoplanetary disks are found around young stars, and represent the embryonic stage of planetary systems. At different phases of their evolution, disks may undergo substantial mass-loss by photoevaporation: energetic photons from the…
First protostellar cores are young stellar objects in the earliest evolutionary stage. They are hydrostatic objects formed soon after the central portions of star-forming cores become optically thick to dust emission. We consider their…
Living organisms have some common structures, chemical reactions and molecular structures. The organisms consist of cells with cell division, they have homochirality of protein and carbohydrate units, and metabolism, and genetics, and they…
We report that protein confinement within nanoscopic vesicular compartments corresponds to a liquid-liquid phase transition with the protein/water within vesicle lumen interacting very differently than in bulk. We show this effect leads to…
In this paper we review recent progress in our understanding of the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks. Current observational constraints and theoretical modeling on the chemical composition of gas and dust in these systems are…
The gas-phase chemistry of water in protoplanetary disks is analyzed with a model based on X-ray heating and ionization of the disk atmosphere. Several uncertain processes appear to play critical roles in generating the column densities of…