The search for chiral asymmetry as a potential biosignature in our solar system

DP Glavin, AS Burton, JE Elsila, JC Aponte… - Chemical …, 2019 - ACS Publications
The search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System is currently guided by our
understanding of terrestrial biology and its associated biosignatures. The observed …

Prebiotic astrochemistry and the formation of molecules of astrobiological interest in interstellar clouds and protostellar disks

SA Sandford, M Nuevo, PP Bera, TJ Lee - Chemical reviews, 2020 - ACS Publications
Despite the generally hostile nature of the environments involved, chemistry does occur in
space. Molecules are seen in environments that span a wide range of physical and chemical …

Rapid electron transfer by the carbon matrix in natural pyrogenic carbon

T Sun, BDA Levin, JJL Guzman, A Enders… - Nature …, 2017 - nature.com
Surface functional groups constitute major electroactive components in pyrogenic carbon.
However, the electrochemical properties of pyrogenic carbon matrices and the kinetic …

Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus

F Postberg, N Khawaja, B Abel, G Choblet, CR Glein… - Nature, 2018 - nature.com
Saturn's moon Enceladus harbours a global water ocean 1, which lies under an ice crust
and above a rocky core 2. Through warm cracks in the crust 3 a cryo-volcanic plume ejects …

Extraterrestrial ribose and other sugars in primitive meteorites

Y Furukawa, Y Chikaraishi… - Proceedings of the …, 2019 - National Acad Sciences
Sugars are essential molecules for all terrestrial biota working in many biological processes.
Ribose is particularly essential as a building block of RNA, which could have both stored …

The pH of Enceladus' ocean

CR Glein, JA Baross, JH Waite Jr - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2015 - Elsevier
Saturn's moon, Enceladus, is a geologically active waterworld. The prevailing paradigm is
that there is a subsurface ocean that erupts to the surface, which leads to the formation of a …

The nature, origin and modification of insoluble organic matter in chondrites, the major source of Earth's C and N

CMOD Alexander, GD Cody, BT De Gregorio, LR Nittler… - Geochemistry, 2017 - Elsevier
All chondrites accreted∼ 3.5 wt.% C in their matrices, the bulk of which was in a
macromolecular solvent and acid insoluble organic material (IOM). Similar material to IOM is …

Mixed aromatic–aliphatic organic nanoparticles as carriers of unidentified infrared emission features

S Kwok, Y Zhang - Nature, 2011 - nature.com
Unidentified infrared emission bands at wavelengths of 3–20 micrometres are widely
observed in a range of environments in our Galaxy and in others. Some features have been …

[HTML][HTML] A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite

T Koga, H Naraoka - Scientific reports, 2017 - nature.com
The occurrence of extraterrestrial organic compounds is a key for understanding prebiotic
organic synthesis in the universe. In particular, amino acids have been studied in …

Advanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy of natural organic matter

J Mao, X Cao, DC Olk, W Chu… - Progress in nuclear …, 2017 - Elsevier
Solid-state NMR is essential for the characterization of natural organic matter (NOM) and is
gaining importance in geosciences and environmental sciences. This review is intended to …