Related papers: Prebiotic Fatty Acid Vesicles through Photochemica…
Context: Outflows are an important part of the star formation process as both the result of ongoing active accretion and one of the main sources of mechanical feedback on small scales. Water is the ideal tracer of these effects because it…
We use a spherical hydrodynamics code to show that in cold dark matter cosmologies, the first stars form at z=50 through the direct collapse of gas in low-mass systems (approx 10^4 solar masses). Photons from the first stars easily…
(200 words) Oxidation of unsaturated lipids is a fundamental process involved in cell bioenergetics as well as in cell death. Using giant unilamellar vesicles and a chlorin photosensitizer, we asymmetrically oxidized the outer or inner…
The origins of planets, and perhaps life itself, is intrinsically linked to the chemistry of planet formation. In this chapter we will attempt to explore the chemistry of planet-forming disks from the perspective of knowledge gained from…
Stars like our Sun and planets like our Earth form in dense regions within interstellar molecular clouds, called pre-stellar cores (PSCs). PSCs provide the initial conditions in the process of star and planet formation. In the past 15…
Several short-chain fatty acids and their corresponding potential existing hydrated forms are important molecules in interstellar space. Their structures were optimized with twelve different computational methods. The dipole moments and the…
An experimental photochemistry study involving gas- and solid-phase amino acids (glycine, DL-valine, DL-proline) and nucleobases (adenine and uracil) under soft X-rays was performed. The aim was to test the molecular stabilities of…
Aims. We study the formation and water delivery of planets in the habitable zone (HZ) around solar-type stars. In particular, we study different dynamical environments that are defined by the most massive body in the system. Methods. First…
Photochemistry induced by stellar UV flux should produce haze particles in exoplanet atmospheres. Recent observations indicate that haze and/or cloud layers exist in the atmospheres of exoplanets. However, photochemical processes in…
This work is the second part of a project that attempts to analyze the formation of Solar system analogues (SSAs) from the gaseous to the post-gas phase, in a self-consistently way. In the first paper (PI) we presented our model of planet…
Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is crucial for the RNA World hypothesis, forming biomolecules essential for early life. Life likely emerged around 4 billion years ago during the early Archean Eon, a period on Earth with a fainter sun, frequent…
The earliest phases of the chemical evolution of our Galaxy are analysed in the light of the recent VLT results (concerning abundance patterns in the most metal-poor stars of the Galactic halo) and of stellar nucleosynthesis calculations.…
The first galaxies that formed at a redshift ~20-30 emitted continuum photons with energies between the Lyman-alpha and Lyman limit wavelengths of hydrogen, to which the neutral universe was transparent except at the Lyman-series…
Photoionization by high-energy photons creates nonthermal electrons with a broad range of energies that heat and chemically transform the atmospheres of planets. The specifics of the interactions are notably different when the gas is atomic…
Planets form and obtain their compositions in disks of gas and dust around young stars. The chemical compositions of these planet-forming disks regulate all aspects of planetary compositions from bulk elemental inventories to access to…
Glycine (NH2CH2COOH) is the simplest amino acid relevant for life. Its detection in the interstellar medium is key to understand the formation mechanisms of pre-biotic molecules and their subsequent delivery onto planetary systems. Glycine…
The interaction of exoplanets with their host stars causes a vast diversity in bulk and atmospheric compositions, and physical and chemical conditions. Stellar radiation, especially at the shorter wavelengths, drives the chemistry in the…
We present experimental studies on the photoionization and photodissociation processes (photodestruction) of gaseous amino acids and nucleobases in interstellar and interplanetary radiation conditions analogs. The measurements have been…
Soluble alpha-amylases play an important role in the catabolism of polysaccharides. In this work, we show that the enzyme can interact with the lipid membrane and further alter its mechanical properties. Vesicle fluctuation spectroscopy is…
In biology, cells undergo deformations under the action of flow caused by the fluid surrounding them. These flows lead to shape changes and instabilities that have been explored in detail for single component vesicles. However, cell…