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Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011iaus..280p.249m&link_type=abstract
The Molecular Universe, Posters from the proceedings of the 280th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union held in Tole
Other
Scientific paper
The formation of complex organics, including nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars, and other molecules of prebiotic interest, in an interstellar environment is an important field of modern astrochemistry research. In a typical experiment, we perform a controlled deposition of a known mixture of gas onto a cold finger while irradiating the sample to simulate the conditions of cold interstellar grains (Bernstein et al., 1995, 2002; Muñoz Caro et al., 2002; Nuevo et al., 2008, 2009, 2010). After the deposition is complete, the sample is warmed and recovered for analysis. Our traditional analysis methods have made extensive use of HPLC with UV-visible detection, GC-MS, and IR spectroscopy when appropriate. While these techniques provide significant insight into the photo-processing of our ices, they invariably lead to the loss of some volatiles during the warm-up, which may be of interest. In order to learn more about the volatiles lost during the warm-up we have installed a residual gas analyzer (RGA) mass spec device on one of our vacuum systems. With this tool, we can perform controlled warm-ups of our samples and monitor the composition of outgassing volatiles as a function of temperature change. Knowledge of the composition of these volatiles could prove invaluable in two ways. First, we may observe important chemical species, which we are unable to detect with our other methods because they are either lost during the warm-up, or cannot be detected using our GC-MS protocol. Second, even compounds which are mundane in and of themselves, may provide important clues about the type of chemistry occurring within the rest of the ice. We are currently using the RGA to study the formation of pyrimidine-based nucleobases from in interstellar ice analogs. In the future we will expand our studies to purines-based nucleic acids, amino acids, and other prebiotic organics.
Materese C. K.
Nuevo Michel
Sandford Scott A.
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