Towards prebiotic chemistry in the interstellar medium

Speaker: Izaskun Jimenez-Serra (CAB)

Abstract: Thursday, 20th June 2024, 12:00 (CEST) (Auditorio/Zoom)
In the past decade, Astrochemistry has witnessed an impressive increase in the number of detections of new molecular species in space. The majority of these detections are related to complex organic molecules, defined as carbon-based compounds with more than five atoms in their molecular structure. Interestingly, some of these complex organics are of prebiotic interest such as amino acetonitrile, a possible precursor of glycine. In the past few years, we have obtained ultra-sensitive, broadband spectral surveys toward one molecular cloud in the Galactic Center, G+0.693, known to be one of the richest chemical repositories in the Milky Way. Our spectral surveys carried out with the IRAM 30m and Yebes 40m telescopes have yielded the detection of 23 new molecular species, which include precursors of ribonucleotides, nucleobases, amino acids, sugars, proto-proteins and proto-lipids as found in theories of the origin of life. In this talk, I will present these recent findings and I will analyze how chemical complexity builds up in the interstellar medium, not only in the extreme environment of the Galactic Center but also during the initial and quiescent conditions of Solar-system formation. This will be the topic of my ERC Consolidator Grant "OPENS: the Onset of Prebiotic chEmistry iN Space".