Related papers: Science with an ngVLA: Prebiotic Molecules
Theories of a pre-RNA world suggest that glycolonitrile (HOCH$_2$CN) is a key species in the process of ribonucleotide assembly, which is considered as a molecular precursor of nucleic acids. In this Letter, we report the first detection of…
Saturnian moon Titan presents a compelling testbed for probing prebiotic chemistry beyond early Earth. Impact-generated melt pools provide transient aqueous habitats in an otherwise cryogenic environment. We use Cantera equilibrium models…
In dense starless and protostellar cores, the relative abundance of deuterated species to their non-deuterated counterparts can become orders of magnitude greater than in the local interstellar medium. This enhancement proceeds through…
The study of the chemical composition of Planetary Nebulae in external galaxies is of paramount importance in the fields of stellar evolution and of the chemical enrichment history of galaxies. In the last years a number of spectroscopic…
The outer Galaxy is an environment with metallicity lower than the Solar one. Because of this, the formation and survival of molecules in star-forming regions located in the inner and outer Galaxy is expected to be different. To gain…
Due to its absence of an atmosphere and relative geological inertness, the Moon's surface records past impacts of objects from the Solar system and beyond. We examine the prospects for discovering extrasolar material near the lunar surface…
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…
In this review we explore aspects of the field of astrobiology from an astronomical viewpoint. We therefore focus on the origin of life in the context of planetary formation, with additional emphasis on tracing the most abundant volatile…
Life on Earth emerged at the interface of the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. This setting serves as our basis for how biological systems originate on rocky planets. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the chemical nature of…
The main achievements, current developments and prospects of molecular studies in external galaxies are reviewed. They are put in the context of the results of several decades of studies of molecules in local interstellar medium, their…
Hydroxylamine, NH2OH, is one of the already detected interstellar molecules with the highest prebiotic potential. Yet, the abundance of this molecule found by astronomical observations is rather low for a relatively simple molecule, $\sim$…
Formamide (NH$_2$CHO) has been identified as a potential precursor of a wide variety of organic compounds essential to life, and many biochemical studies propose it likely played a crucial role in the context of the origin of life on our…
Cell membranes are a key element of life because they keep the genetic material and metabolic machinery together. All present cell membranes are made of phospholipids, yet the nature of the first membranes and the origin of phospholipids…
Element synthesis which started with p-p chain has resulted in several specific characteristics including lack of any stable isotope having atomic masses 5 or 8. The carbon to oxygen ratio is fixed early by the chain of coincidences. These,…
Chemical evolution is essential in understanding the origins of life. We present a theory for the evolution of molecule masses and show that small molecules grow by random diffusion and large molecules by a preferential attachment process…
Cometary comae are generally depleted in nitrogen. The main carriers for volatile nitrogen in comets are NH3 and HCN. It is known that ammonia readily combines with many acids like e.g. HCN, HNCO, HCOOH, etc. encountered in the interstellar…
Accurate molecular crystal structure prediction is a fundamental goal in academic and industrial condensed matter research and polymorphism is arguably the biggest obstacle on the way. We tackle this challenge in the difficult case of the…
This brief overview stresses the importance of laboratory data and theory in analyzing astronomical observations and understanding the physical and chemical processes that drive the astrophysical phenomena in our Universe. This includes…
Context. The detection of NH2CH2CH2OH (ethanolamine) in molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027 adds an additional player to the prebiotic molecules discovered so far in the interstellar medium (ISM). As this molecule might be formed through…
An element's astrophysical origin should be reflected in the spatial distribution of its abundance, yielding measurably different spatial distributions for elements with different nucleosynthetic sites. However, most extragalactic…