Radioastronomical Searches for Instellar Biomolecules

Abstract

Impacts of comets and asteroids could have delivered large amounts of organic matter to the early Earth. to retain a significant interstellar signature; observations of recent bright comets indicate that they have a molecular inventory consistent with their ices being largely unmodified interstellar material. Many simple organic molecules with biochemical significance observed in circumstellar envelopes and in molecular clouds, similar to that from which the Solar System formed, may have acted as the precursors of the more complex organics found in meteorites. Therefore, there is potentially a strong link between interstellar organics and prebiotic chemical evolution. Radioastronomical observations, particularly at millimeter wavelengths, allow us to determine the chemical composition and characteristics of the molecular inventory in interstellar space. Here we report some of our recent results from extensive astronomical searches for astrobiologically-important interstellar organics.