Simulations suggest why highly unsaturated molecules are so abundant in the interstellar medium

Computer simulations of saturated organic molecules being bombarded by high-energy photons and particles have led an international team of researchers to propose fresh ideas surrounding how complex unsaturated molecules form in dense interstellar clouds.

As technologies that allow us to observe interstellar media develop, scientists are discovering that more complex organic molecules are surprisingly abundant in space. ‘These organic molecules are ubiquitous in the universe, so anywhere you point your telescope you can see organic molecules, some of which are precursors to amino acids or nuclear bases,’ says Felipe Fantuzzi of the University of Kent in the UK, who co-led the work. ‘To understand how these molecules that are essential to life are formed, and how they are delivered to planets, I think, is the most important question in astrochemistry,’ he adds.