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Astrochemistry and Origins

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8 years 9 months ago

A multidisciplinary team involving researchers from the IAS, the CIMAP, the IPNO, the GANIL, and Rio de Janeiro's PUC Catholic University has characterized in the laboratory the effects of heavy cosmic rays on the structure and sputtering of water ice in interstellar and planetary environments. These experiments are used to study phase changes induced by swift heavy ions, similar to the Galactic cosmic rays. They complement and extend the knowledge already obtained at lower energies. In addition to the ice phase change, these studies reveal the importance of water ice molecules released in the gas phase by swift heavy Galactic ions, or sputtering of interstellar ices present in dense and cold interstellar clouds.

9 years 10 months ago

Living organisms use amino acids exclusively in their L enantiomeric form, a fact known as homochirality. However, the abiotic synthesis of these molecules do produce racemic mixtures (L=D) and the origin of the asymmetry remains hypothetical. The “Astrochimie et Origines” team at IAS operates an experiment dedicated to the photochemistry of ices as templates of interstellar/pre-cometary ices. These ices may be irradiated by an asymmetric light, a circularly polarized, which promotes enantioselectivity in chiral molecules. New results show that enantioselectivity obtained on five different amino acids allows confirming previous results and may help to further precise the astrophysical scenario that may be responsible for the origin of the biomolecular asymmetry at the surface of the primitive Earth.

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