Over 130 molecules have been identified in the interstellar gas and circumstellar shells, the largest among them is a carbon chain with 13 atoms and molecular weight of 147 (twice that of the simplest amino acid glycine). The high reliability of astronomical identifications, as well as the fairly accurate quantitative analysis which can often be achieved, is emphasized. Glycine itself has been ...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the most abundant type of molecule present in the interstellar medium (ISM). It has been hypothesized that nitrogen replacement within a ring is likely for PAHs present in the ISM. Additionally, electrons, protons, and hydrogen atoms are readily added to or removed from PAHs creating a truly diverse set of chemistries in various interstellar regions. ...

Current research focuses on a better understanding of the origin of biomolecular asymmetry by the identification and detection of the possibly first chiral molecules that were involved in the appearance and evolution of life on Earth. We have reasons to assume that these molecules were specific chiral amino acids. Chiral amino acids have been identified in both chondritic meteorites and simulat...

Using the Very Large Array, we have detected weak OH maser emission near the Turner–Welch protostellar source in the W3 OH region. Unlike typical interstellar OH masers, which are associated with ultra-compact HII regions, our measured positions and proper motions (from Very Long Baseline Interferometry) indicate that these OH masers are associated with a bipolar outflow traced by strong H2O ma...

Many chemical models of dense interstellar clouds predict that the majority of gas-phase elemental nitrogen should be present as N(2), with an abundance approximately five orders of magnitude less than that of hydrogen. As a homonuclear diatomic molecule, N(2) is difficult to detect spectroscopically through infrared or millimeter-wavelength transitions. Therefore, its abundance is often inferr...

Abstract Using quantum chemical calculations, we model the pathways for synthesizing adenine and guanine in gas-phase interstellar environment, surrounded by neutral atomic hydrogen (HI). HI is found active facilitating a series of fundamental proton transfer processes organic synthesis, including bond formation, cyclization, dehydrogenation, H migration. The reactive potential barriers were si...