Astrochemistry Insights in Science Magazine, by Christine Joblin and José Cernicharo

Cone Nebula (NGC 2264) Credits: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA.

Detecting the building blocks of aromatics” is the title of this “Insight” written by Christine Joblin and José Cernicharo (both NANOCOSMOS PIs together with J.A. Martín Gago) and talking about the history and importance of the work published by Brett A. McGuire et al. (“Detection of the aromatic molecule benzonitrile (c-C6H5CN) in the interstellar medium“) in the “Science Magazine” (12/01/2018).

This is the summary of the article from C. Joblin and J. Cernicharo:

“Interstellar clouds are sites of active organic chemistry. Many small, gasphase molecules are found in the dark parts of the clouds that are protected from ultraviolet (UV) photons, but these molecules photodissociate in the external layers of the cloud that are exposed to stellar radiation (see the photo). These irradiated regions are populated by large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with characteristic infrared (IR) emission features. These large aromatics are expected to form from benzene (C6H6), which is, however, difficult to detect because it does not have a permanent dipole moment and can only be detected via its IR absorption transitions against a strong background source (2). On page 202 of this issue, McGuire et al. (3) report the detection of benzonitrile (c-C6H5CN) with radio telescopes. Benzonitrile likely forms in the reaction of CN with benzene; from its observation, it is therefore possible to estimate the abundance of benzene itself”.