A Systematic Study of Glycolaldehyde in Sagittarius B2(N) at 2 and 3 mm: Criteria for Detecting Large Interstellar Molecules

Halfen, D. T.; Apponi, A. J.; Woolf, N. J.; Polt, Robin; Ziurys, L. M.

doi:10.1086/499225

Cited by 116 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Glycolaldehyde has been detected in emission and/or in absorption by radio astronomy toward the galactic center source, Sagittarius B2(N) (33)(34)(35)(36)(37), in the hot molecular core, G31.41+ 0.31 (38), and in the solar-type protostellar binary, IRAS 16293-2422 (39). However, glycolaldehyde has never been detected in Solar System objects, for which only an upper limit could be determined in the Hale-Bopp comet (40, 41), as well as in the C/2012 F6 and C/2013 R1 comets (42) (N-LMH), but no lines were detected.…”

Section: Astrophysical Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An infrared study of glycolaldehyde and its tentative identification in a proton-irradiated CO:CH 3 The first formation mechanism speculated for glycolaldehyde was an interstellar equivalent of the formose reaction in solid or gas phase based on the polymerization of formaldehyde (35). Recently, Woods et al (47,48) considered several different reaction mechanisms in solid or gas phase, most of them previously suggested in the literature (33,38,46,49,50), and, from a theoretical point of view, studied their effectiveness at 10 K. To our knowledge, no formation mechanism in extraterrestrial conditions has been proposed for glyceraldehyde or higher-mass aldehydes, although the speculative "interstellar formose reaction" may again apply. Identification of glyceraldehyde as O-pentafluorobenzyl (R) oxime bis(trimethylsilyl) ether (PFBO-TMS) in laboratory organic residues using multidimensional gas chromatography.…”

Section: Astrophysical Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

Marcellus

Meinert

Myrgorodska

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

114

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Evolved interstellar ices observed in dense protostellar molecular clouds may arguably be considered as part of precometary materials that will later fall on primitive telluric planets, bringing a wealth of complex organic compounds. In our laboratory, experiments reproducing the photo/thermochemical evolution of these ices are routinely performed. Following previous amino acid identifications in the resulting room temperature organic residues, we have searched for a different family of molecules of potential prebiotic interest. Using multidimensional gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry, we have detected 10 aldehydes, including the sugar-related glycolaldehyde and glyceraldehyde-two species considered as key prebiotic intermediates in the first steps toward the synthesis of ribonucleotides in a planetary environment. The presence of ammonia in water and methanol ice mixtures appears essential for the recovery of these aldehydes in the refractory organic residue at room temperature, although these products are free of nitrogen. We finally point out the importance of detecting aldehydes and sugars in extraterrestrial environments, in the gas phase of hot molecular clouds, and, more importantly, in comets and in primitive meteorites that have most probably seeded the Earth with organic material as early as 4.2 billion years ago.glyceraldehyde | glycolaldehyde | astrochemistry | precometary ices | prebiotic evolution

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Section: Astrophysical Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Astrophysical Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

Marcellus

Meinert

Myrgorodska

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

114

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“…As shown in Fig. 6, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site, this object contains a wide variety of organic molecules (66). The galactic center has undergone many cycles of star formation, including processing by AGB stars, as demonstrated by the high 13 C͞ 12 C ratios found (67).…”

Section: Molecular Recycling Into Diffuse Clouds?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The chemistry in circumstellar envelopes of evolved stars: Following the origin of the elements to the origin of life

Ziurys

2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

268

207

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“…Indeed, whereas methyl formate is known to be abundant in many molecular cores, glycolaldehyde has only been detected toward Sgr B2 (e.g. Hollis et al 2000;Halfen et al 2006) and acetic acid is barely detected in hot cores (e.g. Shiao et al 2010).…”

Section: Comparison With the Other C 2 H 4 O 2 Isomersmentioning

confidence: 99%

HCOOCH₃as a probe of temperature and structure in Orion-KL

Favre

Despois

Brouillet

et al. 2011

A&A

100

238

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Context. The Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula (Orion-KL) is a complex region of star formation. Whereas its proximity allows studies on a scale of a few hundred AU, spectral confusion makes it difficult to identify molecules with low abundances. Aims. We studied an important oxygenated molecule, HCOOCH 3 , to characterize the physical conditions, temperature, and density of the different molecular source components. Methyl formate presents strong close rotational transitions covering a wide range of energy, and its emission in Orion-KL is not contaminated by the emission of N-bearing molecules. This study will help in the future 1) to constrain chemical models for the formation of methyl formate in gas phase or on grain mantles and 2) to search for more complex or prebiotic molecules. Methods. We used high-resolution observations from the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer to reduce spectral confusion and to better isolate the molecular emission regions. We used twelve data sets with a spatial resolution down to 1.8 × 0.8 . Continuum emission was subtracted by selecting apparently line-free channels. Results. We identify 28 methyl formate emission peaks throughout the 50 field of observations. The two strongest peaks, named MF1 and MF2, are in the Compact Ridge and in the southwest of the Hot Core, respectively. From a comparison with single-dish observations, we estimate that we miss less than 15% of the flux and that spectral confusion is still prevailing as half of the expected transitions are blended over the region. Assuming that the transitions are thermalized, we derive the temperature at the five main emission peaks. At the MF1 position in the Compact Ridge we find a temperature of 80 K in a 1.8 × 0.8 beam size and 120 K on a larger scale (3.6 × 2.2 ), suggesting an external source of heating, whereas the temperature is about 130 K at the MF2 position on both scales. Transitions of methyl formate in its first torsionally excited state are detected as well, and the good agreement of the positions on the rotational diagrams between the ground state and the v t = 1 transitions suggests a similar temperature. The LSR velocity of the gas is between 7.5 and 8.0 km s −1 depending on the positions and column density peaks vary from 1.6 × 10 16 to 1.6 × 10 17 cm −2 . A second velocity component is observed around 9−10 km s −1 in a north-south structure stretching from the Compact Ridge up to the BN object, and this component is warmer at the MF1 peak. The two other C 2 H 4 O 2 isomers are not detected, and the derived upper limit for the column density is ≤3 × 10 14 cm −2 for glycolaldehyde and ≤2 × 10 15 cm −2 for acetic acid. From the 223 GHz continuum map, we identify several dust clumps with associated gas masses in the range 0.8 to 5.8 M . Assuming that the methyl formate is spatially distributed as the dust is, we find relative abundances of methyl formate in the range ≤0.1 × 10 −8 to 5.2 × 10 −8 . We suggest a relation between the methyl formate distribution and shocks as traced by 2.12 μm H 2 emission.

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A Systematic Study of Glycolaldehyde in Sagittarius B2(N) at 2 and 3 mm: Criteria for Detecting Large Interstellar Molecules

Cited by 116 publications

References 23 publications

Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

The chemistry in circumstellar envelopes of evolved stars: Following the origin of the elements to the origin of life

HCOOCH₃as a probe of temperature and structure in Orion-KL

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A Systematic Study of Glycolaldehyde in Sagittarius B2(N) at 2 and 3 mm: Criteria for Detecting Large Interstellar Molecules

Cited by 116 publications

References 23 publications

Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

Aldehydes and sugars from evolved precometary ice analogs: Importance of ices in astrochemical and prebiotic evolution

The chemistry in circumstellar envelopes of evolved stars: Following the origin of the elements to the origin of life

HCOOCH3as a probe of temperature and structure in Orion-KL

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HCOOCH₃as a probe of temperature and structure in Orion-KL