Related papers: Science with an ngVLA: Prebiotic Molecules
We report that polymer amide [1] with a protein backbone of mainly glycine units and iron is present in the CV3 meteorites Acfer 086, Allende and KABA. The evidence for this is from particles of these meteorites after Folch extraction being…
Stars are fossils that retain the history of their host galaxies. Carbon and heavier elements are created inside stars and are ejected when they die. From the spatial distribution of elements in galaxies, it is therefore possible to…
The most intriguing question related to the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks is the genesis of pre-biotic organic molecules in the planet-forming zone. In this contribution we briefly review current observational knowledge of…
The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…
Episodic accretion may be a common occurrence in the evolution of young pre-main sequence stars and has important implications for our understanding of star and planet formation. Many fundamental aspects of what drives the accretion…
Remote and in-situ observations of cometary gases have revealed the presence of a wealth of complex organic molecules, including carbon chains, alcohols, imines and the amino acid glycine. Such chemical complexity in cometary material…
Impacts by small solar system bodies (meteoroids, asteroids, comets and transitional objects) are characterized by a combination of energy dynamics and chemical modification on both terrestrial and small solar system bodies. In this…
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets has shown that the birth of planets is a very efficient process in nature. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to describe the assembly of planets in disks surrounding young stars.…
The precursors to larger, biologically-relevant molecules are detected throughout interstellar space, but determining the presence and properties of these molecules during planet formation requires observations of protoplanetary disks at…
Understanding what environmental conditions prevailed on early Earth during the Hadean eon, and how this set the stage for the origins of life, remains a challenge. Geologic processes such as serpentinization and bombardment by chondritic…
Nitriles play a key role as molecular precursors in prebiotic experiments based on the RNA-world scenario for the origin of life. These chemical compounds could have been partially delivered to the young Earth from extraterrestrial objects,…
With the giant exoplanet occurrence rate peaking around stars of 1.5-2 solar masses, there is strong motivation to characterize the disks that set their formation conditions. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…
Terrestrial planets and the cores of giant planets are thought to be built by the collisional agglomeration of solids spanning over 20 orders of magnitude in size within a few million years. However, there is tension between this basic…
Our understanding of stellar atmospheres and our ability to infer architectures of extrasolar planetary systems rely on understanding the emission of stars at submillimeter to centimeter wavelengths. In this chapter we describe how…
This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2009 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing…
Extra-terrestrial polymers of glycine with iron have been characterized by mass spectrometry to have a core mass of 1494Da with dominant rod-like variants at m/z 1567 and m/z 1639 [1]. Several principal macro-structural morphologies are…
Continuum observations of molecular clouds have revealed a surprising amount of substructure in the form of filaments of a few pc length and cores of ~0.1 pc diameter. Understanding the evolution of these substructures towards star…
Understanding the origin of the astonishing diversity of exoplanets is a key question for the coming decades. ALMA has revolutionized our view of the dust emission from protoplanetary disks, demonstrating the prevalence of ring and spiral…
Earth's volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms. However, identifying the sources (comets, meteorites, and trapped nebular gas) that supplied volatiles to Earth…
An outstanding question of astrobiology is the link between the chemical composition of planets, comets, and other solar system bodies and the molecules formed in the interstellar medium. Understanding the chemical and physical evolution of…