A search for interstellar pyrimidine

doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06975.x

If you are seeing this message, you may be experiencing temporary network problems. Please wait a few minutes and refresh the page. If the problem persists, you may wish to report it to your local Network Manager.

It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest version of Microsoft or Mozilla web browser to help minimise these problems.

Wiley InterScience

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

See Also:

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters

Volume 345 Issue 2, Pages 650 - 656

Published Online: 10 Oct 2003

A Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society

Go to Society Site

< Previous Abstract | Next Abstract >

Save Article to My Profile Download Citation Request Permissions

Abstract | References | Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 573K) | Related Articles | Citation Tracking

A search for interstellar pyrimidine

Yi-Jehng Kuan ^1, ² ^★ , Chi-Hung Yan ¹ , Steven B. Charnley ³ , Zbigniew Kisiel ⁴ , Pascale Ehrenfreund ⁵ and Hui-Chun Huang ¹

¹ Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 116, Taiwan ² Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, PO Box 23-141, Taipei 106, Taiwan ³ Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Centre, MS 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA ⁴ Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al.Lotnikow 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland ⁵ Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands

Correspondence to ^★ E-mail: kuan@sgrb2.geos.ntnu.edu.tw (YJK)

KEYWORDS

astrobiology • line: identification • ISM: individual: Orion KL • ISM: individual: Sgr B2(N) • ISM: individual: W51 e1/e2 • ISM: molecules

ABSTRACT

We have searched three hot molecular cores for submillimetre emission from the nucleic acid building block pyrimidine. We obtain upper limits to the total pyrimidine (beam-averaged) column densities towards Sgr B2(N), Orion KL and W51 e1/e2 of 1.7 × 10¹⁴, 2.4 × 10¹⁴ and 3.4 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻² , respectively. The associated upper limits to the pyrimidine fractional abundances lie in the range (0.3−3) × 10⁻¹⁰ . Implications of this result for interstellar organic chemistry, and for the prospects of detecting nitrogen heterocycles in general, are discussed briefly.

Accepted 2003 June 30. Received 2003 June 17; in original form 2003 April 14

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06975.x About DOI