Heterocyclic molecules consist of atoms of two different elements (plus hydrogen) arranged in a ring structure. Nitrogen heterocycles are the major components in biological nucleic acids, and are produced from simpler nitrogen molecules like hydrogen cyanide.
Adenine, one of the component bases of nucleic acids, is considered to have developed from one of the known two-ring nitrogen heterocycles, glycolonitrile.
In the cold interstellar region of space, glycolonitrile could cluster on the surfaces of icy grain through reactions between formaldehyde (CH2O) and hydrogen cyanide.
Astronomers have now discovered that glycolonitrile could be split apart by ultraviolet light, leaving behind different forms of simpler nitrogen-bearing molecules, some of which have been found in molecular cloud in space.
Rafael Martin-Domenech, a CFA astronomer and his colleagues used the ALMA telescope to assist in the search for glycolonitrile in the young, solar-type protostar IRAS162932422B.
The substance has been confirmed to possess a cold outer enclosure of gas and dust and a hotter inner zone heated by the star protruding out of about a hundred astronomical units. The team search for the characteristic spectral signature of glycolonitrile in three frequency bands of ALMA, and discovered thirty-five of its transitions that were not ambiguous.
Again, numerous chemical substances has also been discovered in the warm zone and so the team concluded that some other chemical pathways must be in existence in this zone.
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