It is long debated if pre-biotic molecules are indeed present in the interstellar medium. Despite substantial works pointing to their existence, pre-biotic molecules are yet to be discovered with a […]
astrochemistry
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release
Complex Organic Molecules Discovered in Infant Star System
For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star, indicating that the conditions […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release
Top-down Formation of Fullerenes in the Interstellar Medium
Fullerenes have been recently detected in various circumstellar and interstellar environments, raising the question of their formation pathway. It has been proposed that they can form by the photo-chemical processing […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
Volatile Delivery to Planets from Water-rich Planetesimals around Low Mass Stars
Most models of volatile delivery to accreting terrestrial planets assume that the carriers for water are similar in water content to the carbonaceous chondrites in our Solar System. chondrites have […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
Environment Around Black Hole Protects Organic Chemicals
A research team led by Shuro Takano at NAOJ and Taku Nakajima at Nagoya University observed the spiral galaxy M77 with ALMA and discovered that organic molecules are concentrated in […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
Complex Organics in the Inner Regions of Solar-type Protostars
The high abundances of Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) with respect to methanol, the most abundant COM, detected towards low-mass protostars, tend to be underpredicted by astrochemical models. This discrepancy might […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release
Oxygen Enrichment in Carbon-rich Planetary Nebulae
We studied the relation between the chemical composition and the type of dust present in a group of 20 Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) that have high quality optical and infrared […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release
Shedding Light on the Formation of the Pre-biotic Molecule Formamide with ASAI
Formamide (NH2CHO) has been proposed as a pre-biotic precursor with a key role in the emergence of life on Earth. While this molecule has been observed in space, most of […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Press Release
Collisions of Small ice Particles Under Microgravity Conditions
Understanding the collisional properties of ice is important for understanding both the early stages of planet formation and the evolution of planetary ring systems. Simple chemicals such as methanol and […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
Antifreeze in the Hot Core of Orion: First Detection of Ethylene Glycol in Orion-KL
Comparison of their chemical compositions shows, to first order, a good agreement between the cometary and interstellar abundances. However, a complex O-bearing organic molecule, ethylene glycol (CH2OH)2, seems to depart […]