Prebiotic chemicals—amino acid and phosphorus—in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Altwegg, K.; Balsiger, H.; Bar‐Nun, A.; Berthelier, J. J.; Bieler, A.; Bochsler, P.; Briois, Christelle; Calmonte, Ursina; Combi, M. R.; Cottin, Hervé; Keyser, Johan De; Dhooghe, Frederik; Fiethe, Björn; Fuselier, S. A.; Gasc, S.; Gombosi, T. I.; Hansen, K. C.; Haessig, Myrtha; Jäckel, A.; Kopp, E.; Korth, A.; Roy, L. Le; Mall, U.; Marty, Bernard; Mousis, O.; Owen, Tobias; Rème, H.; Rubı́n, M.; Sémon, T.; Tzou, Chia-Yu; Waite, James Hunter; Wurz, P.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600285

articleScience AdvancesMay 6, 2016GOLD OA

Prebiotic chemicals—amino acid and phosphorus—in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

KAK. Altwegg HBH. Balsiger ABA. Bar‐Nun JJJ. J. Berthelier ABA. Bieler

University of Bern · Tel Aviv University · +21 more institutions

PubMed

Indexed incrossrefdoajpubmed

Abstract

The importance of comets for the origin of life on Earth has been advocated for many decades. Amino acids are key ingredients in chemistry, leading to life as we know it. Many primitive meteorites contain amino acids, and it is generally believed that these are formed by aqueous alterations. In the collector aerogel and foil samples of the Stardust mission after the flyby at comet Wild 2, the simplest form of amino acids, glycine, has been found together with precursor molecules methylamine and ethylamine. Because of contamination issues of the samples, a cometary origin was deduced from the (13)C isotopic signature. We report the presence of volatile glycine accompanied by methylamine and ethylamine in the…

Citation impact

557

total citations

FWCI: 34.05
Percentile: 100%
References: 36

Citations per year

Authors

32

Topics & keywords

Topics

Keywords

Coma (optics)
Comet
Astrobiology
Prebiotic
Phosphorus
Glycine
SPARK (programming language)
Abiogenesis

No related works found for this paper.