Astrochemistry

Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS)

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.SR
October 30, 2017
Filed under
Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS)

Complex organic molecules have been observed for decades in the interstellar medium. Some of them might be considered as small bricks of the macromolecules at the base of terrestrial life.

It is hence particularly important to understand organic chemistry in Solar-like star forming regions. In this article, we present a new observational project: SOLIS (Seeds Of Life In Space). This is a Large Project at the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer, and its scope is to image the emission of several crucial organic molecules in a sample of Solar-like star forming regions in different evolutionary stage and environments.

Here, we report the first SOLIS results, obtained from analysing the spectra of different regions of the Class 0 source NGC1333-IRAS4A, the protocluster OMC-2 FIR4, and the shock site L1157-B1. The different regions were identified based on the images of formamide (NH2CHO) and cyanodiacetylene (HC5N) lines.

We discuss the observed large diversity in the molecular and organic content, both on large (3000-10000 au) and relatively small (300-1000 au) scales. Finally, we derive upper limits to the methoxy fractional abundance in the three observed regions of the same order of magnitude of that measured in few cold prestellar objects, namely ~10^-12-10^-11 with respect to H2 molecules.

Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS): The organic composition diversity at 300–1000 au scale in Solar-type star forming regions

C. Ceccarelli, P. Caselli, F. Fontani, R. Neri, A. Lopez-Sepulcre, C. Codella, S. Feng, I. Jimenez-Serra, B. Lefloch, J. E. Pineda, C. Vastel, F. Alves, R. Bachiller, N. Balucani, E. Bianchi, L. Bizzocchi, S. Bottinelli, E. Caux, A. Chacon-Tanarro, R. Choudhury, A. Coutens, F. Dulieu, C. Favre, P. Hily-Blant, J. Holdship, C. Kahane, A. Jaber Al-Edhari, J. Laas, J. Ospina, Y. Oya, L. Podio, A. Pon, A. Punanova, D. Quenard, A. Rimola, N. Sakai, I.R. Sim, S. Spezzano, V. Taquet, L. Testi, P. Theule, P. Ugliengo, A.I. Vasyunin, S. Viti, L. Wiesenfeld, S. Yamamoto

(Submitted on 28 Oct 2017)

Comments: Accepted for publication on The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:1710.10437 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:1710.10437v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
Submission history
From: Cecilia Ceccarelli Prof
[v1] Sat, 28 Oct 2017 09:51:12 GMT (816kb,D)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.10437

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻