Astrochemistry

A Deep Search For Ethylene Glycol And Glycolonitrile In The V883 Ori Protoplanetary Disk

By Keith Cowing

Press Release

September 11, 2025

Filed under ALMA, biochemistry, exoplanet, habitability, Habitable Zone, Interstellar, Nucleic Acids, organic chemistry, prebiotic chemistry, Protoplanetary Disk, V883 Orionis

A Deep Search For Ethylene Glycol And Glycolonitrile In The V883 Ori Protoplanetary Disk — The top and lower left panels show the integrated intensity map and the intensity-weighted velocity for EG. The top and lower right panels show the same for GN. We only included that data above 0.005 Jy beam−1 in the moment maps. Gray contours in the intensity-weighted velocity maps represent 1, 3, 5, and 7σ, where σ = 0.005 Jy; beam−1 ; channel−1 , integrated over 10 channels. The beam size is shown in the lower left of each panel. The moment 0 maps for EG and GN were generated by summing the following transitions (EG: 350.70, 351.02, 351.30, and 351.81 GHz; GN: 348.19 and 362.22 GHz). The moment 1 maps were generated by averaging the same transitions used for moment 0 maps. The HNC detection at 362.63 GHz is shown for comparison. — astro-ph.SR

Ethylene glycol ((CH₂OH)₂, hereafter EG) and Glycolonitrile (HOCH₂CN, hereafter GN) are considered molecular precursors of nucleic acids.

EG is a sugar alcohol and the reduced form of Glycolaldehyde (CH₂(OH)CHO, hereafter GA). GN is considered a key precursor of adenine formation (nucleotide) and can be a precursor of glycine (amino acid). Detections of such prebiotic molecules in the interstellar medium are increasingly common.

How much of this complexity endures to the planet formation stage, and thus is already present when planets form, remains largely unknown. Here we report Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) observations in which we tentatively detect EG and GN in the protoplanetary disk around the outbursting protostar V883 Ori.

The observed EG emission is best reproduced by a column density of 3.63+0.11−0.12×10¹⁶cm⁻² and a temperature of at least 300 K. The observed GN emission is best reproduced by a column density of 3.37+0.09−0.09×10¹⁶cm⁻² and a temperature of 88+1.2−1.2 K. Comparing the abundance of EG and GN relative to methanol in V883 Ori with other objects, V883 Ori falls between hot cores and comets in terms of increasing complexity.

This suggests that the build up of prebiotic molecules continues past the hot core phase into the epoch of planet formation. Nascent planets in such environments may inherit essential building blocks for life, enhancing their potential habitability. Further observations of this protoplanetary disk at higher spectral resolution are required to resolve blended lines and to confirm these tentative detection.

Abubakar M. A. Fadul, Kamber R. Schwarz, Tushar Suhasaria, Jenny K. Calahan, Jane Huang, Merel L. R. van ‘t Hoff

Comments: 15 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2507.14905 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2507.14905v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.14905
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Journal reference: Astrophys. J. Lett. 988, L44 (2025)
Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adec6e
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Submission history
From: Abubakar Fadul
[v1] Sun, 20 Jul 2025 10:32:25 UTC (5,882 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14905

Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, Astronomy,

Keith Cowing

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) 🖖🏻

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