Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 371, Issue 6535, Pages -Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.abb7535
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Funding
- NASA through Hubble Fellowship [HST-HF251396]
- Smithsonian Institution as a Submillimeter Array (SMA) Fellow
- NSF [AST-1908576, AST-1615847, AST 1906489]
- NASA [80NSSC18K0396]
- Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation
- European Union's Horizon 2020
- Marie SklodowskaCurie [845165-MIRAGE]
- NASA Astrobiology Institute through the Goddard Center for Astrobiology
- NSF through the Grote Reber Fellowship Program administered by Associated Universities, Inc./National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- Virginia Space Grant Consortium
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Unidentified infrared emission bands are commonly attributed to PAH molecules, and in this study, two nitrile-group-functionalized PAHs were detected in the interstellar medium. The study also discusses potential pathways for gas-phase PAH formation from smaller organic precursor molecules.
Unidentified infrared emission bands are ubiquitous in many astronomical sources. These bands are widely, if not unanimously, attributed to collective emissions from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules, yet no single species of this class has been identified in space. Using spectral matched filtering of radio data from the Green Bank Telescope, we detected two nitrile-group-functionalized PAHs, 1- and 2-cyanonaphthalene, in the interstellar medium. Both bicyclic ring molecules were observed in the TMC-1 molecular cloud. In this paper, we discuss potential in situ gas-phase PAH formation pathways from smaller organic precursor molecules.
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