Organic environments on Saturn’s moon, Titan: Simulating chemical reactions and analyzing products by FT-ICR and ion-trap mass spectrometry

Somogyi, Árpád; Oh, Chu-Ha; Smith, Mark A.; Lunine, Jonathan I.

doi:10.1016/j.jasms.2005.01.027

Cited by 65 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The energy sources used in the laboratory are proxies for the solar irradiation and the precipitation of magnetospheric electrons. Those natural sources are reproduced in the laboratory by UV photon fluxes Imanaka and Smith 2010;Trainer et al 2012;Tran et al 2008;Trainer et al 2006) and/or by plasma discharges (Somogyi et al 2005;Coll et al 1999;Horvath et al 2009;Imanaka et al 2004;Hörst and Tolbert 2013). Pressure and temperature are strongly dependent on the experiments, and can hardly reproduce the whole range and extreme conditions occurring in real atmospheres.…”

Section: Simulation Facilities For Organic Aerosols In Planetary Atmomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Laboratory studies have been used for example to investigate Titan's aerosol chemical composition through geological time-scale , and the low isotopic nitrogen fractionation of the Archean organic matter on the early Earth (Kuga et al 2014). And thirdly, analogues can be analyzed with highly efficient analytical techniques yet out of reach in space, providing unique information on the chemical composition and formation processes of the organic aerosols: Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (Derenne et al 2012;He and Smith 2014), high resolution mass spectrometry Pernot et al 2010;Somogyi et al 2005) or thermal characterization Nna-Mvondo et al 2013).…”

Section: Simulation Facilities For Organic Aerosols In Planetary Atmomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Earth as a Tool for Astrobiology—A European Perspective

et al. 2017

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Scientists use the Earth as a tool for astrobiology by analyzing planetary field analogues (i.e. terrestrial samples and field sites that resemble planetary bodies in our Solar System). In addition, they expose the selected planetary field analogues in simulation chambers to conditions that mimic the ones of planets, moons and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space conditions, as well as the chemistry occurring in interstellar and cometary ices. This paper reviews the ways the Earth is used by astrobiologists: (i) by conducting planetary field analogue studies to investigate extant life from extreme environments, its metabolisms, adaptation strategies and modern biosignatures; (ii) by conducting planetary field analogue studies to investigate extinct life from the oldest rocks on our planet and its biosignatures; (iii) by exposing terrestrial samples to simulated space or planetary environments and producing a sample analogue to investigate changes in minerals, biosignatures and microorganisms. The European Space Agency (ESA) created a topical team in 2011 to investigate recent activities using the Earth as a tool for astrobiology and to formulate recommendations and scientific needs to improve ground-based astrobiological research. Space is an important tool for astrobiology (see Horneck et al. in Astrobiology, 16:201-243, 2016;Cottin et al., 2017), but access to space is limited. Complementing research on Earth provides fast access, more replications and higher sample throughput. The major conclusions of the topical team and suggestions for the future include more scientifically qualified calls for field campaigns with planetary analogy, and a centralized point of contact at ESA or the EU for the organization of a survey of such expeditions. An improvement of the coordinated logistics, infrastructures and funding system supporting the combination of field work with planetary simulation investigations, as well as an optimization of the scientific return and data processing, data storage and data distribution is also needed. Finally, a coordinated EU or ESA education and outreach program would improve the participation of the public in the astrobiological activities.

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Section: Simulation Facilities For Organic Aerosols In Planetary Atmomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Simulation Facilities For Organic Aerosols In Planetary Atmomentioning

confidence: 99%

Earth as a Tool for Astrobiology—A European Perspective

et al. 2017

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“…The peak richness of the observed patterns gives evidence of the intrinsic compositional (and structural) diversity of molecules within and across chemical classes, which is an acknowledged feature of extraterrestrial chemistry (19,20). Comparable but lesser diversity was also found in terrestrial organic matter (17) as well as in chemically complex products of reactions modeling processes that possibly take place in Titan's atmosphere (21). The occurrence of extensive homologous (-CH 2 -)-series is an inevitable consequence of intricacy within organic mixtures (17), so analogous regular patterns do appear in the various data reduced to twodimensional depictions of mass spectra (e.g., van Krevelen diagrams), which reflect projections of the CHNOS compositional space (Fig.…”

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confidence: 94%

“…The presolar organic synthesis appears feasible already in the lower 10 K range in the outer space (2,22) and at higher temperatures; for instance, the UV photolysis of atmospheric aerosols is the key to typical CHN(O) organic chemistry at around 90 K observed on Titan (21,23).…”

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confidence: 99%

High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed 40 years after its fall

Schmitt‐Kopplin

Gabélica

Gougeon

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

502

424

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Numerous descriptions of organic molecules present in the Murchison meteorite have improved our understanding of the early interstellar chemistry that operated at or just before the birth of our solar system. However, all molecular analyses were so far targeted toward selected classes of compounds with a particular emphasis on biologically active components in the context of prebiotic chemistry. Here we demonstrate that a nontargeted ultrahigh-resolution molecular analysis of the solvent-accessible organic fraction of Murchison extracted under mild conditions allows one to extend its indigenous chemical diversity to tens of thousands of different molecular compositions and likely millions of diverse structures. This molecular complexity, which provides hints on heteroatoms chronological assembly, suggests that the extraterrestrial chemodiversity is high compared to terrestrial relevant biologicaland biogeochemical-driven chemical space.Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry | interstellar chemistry | nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy | organic chondrite | soluble organic matter M urchison chondrite is one of the most studied meteorites and became a reference for extraterrestrial organic chemistry (1). The diversity of organic compounds recorded in Murchison and in other carbon-rich carbonaceous chondrites (1-5) has clearly improved our understanding of the early interstellar chemistry that operated at or just before the birth of our solar system. More than 70% of the Murchison carbon content has been classified as (macromolecular) insoluble organic matter (IOM) of high aromaticity, whereas the soluble fraction contains extensive suites of organic molecules with more than 500 structures identified so far (6). These structures basically resemble known biomolecules, but are considered to result from abiotic synthesis because of peculiar occurrence patterns, racemic mixtures, and stable isotope contents and distributions. Most of the 100+ kg fragments of Murchison were collected shortly after it fell in Australia on September 28, 1969, so that neither of these fresh samples suffered from intensive terrestrial weathering (7).As a whole, Murchison is one of the least-altered chondrites (8), recently reclassified by Rubin et al. (9) as CM2.5, where the aqueous alteration index (2.5 petrologic subtype), based on petrographic and mineralogical properties of the meteorite, indicates that the primary lithology of Murchison had experienced a relatively low and uniform degree of aqueous alteration.Nevertheless, all previous molecular analyses were targeted toward selected classes of compounds with a particular emphasis on amino acids in the context of prebiotic chemistry as potential source of life on earth (10), or on compounds obtained in chemical degradation studies (11) releasing both genuine extractable molecules and reaction products (11-15) often difficult to discern unambiguously.Alternative nontargeted investigations of complex organic systems are now feasible using advanced analytical met...

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“…Accordingly, custom computer software has been written to assign molecular formulae to the measured peaks quickly and accurately. The software uses a list of molecules known to exist in tholins (Somogyi et al, 2005) to perform an internal mass calibration of the data. After internal calibration, the molecular formula identifications are unique up to 300 u.…”

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confidence: 99%

Formation of Amino Acids and Nucleotide Bases in a Titan Atmosphere Simulation Experiment

et al. 2012

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The discovery of large ( > 100 u) molecules in Titan's upper atmosphere has heightened astrobiological interest in this unique satellite. In particular, complex organic aerosols produced in atmospheres containing C, N, O, and H, like that of Titan, could be a source of prebiotic molecules. In this work, aerosols produced in a Titan atmosphere simulation experiment with enhanced CO (N 2 /CH 4 /CO gas mixtures of 96.2%/2.0%/1.8% and 93.2%/5.0%/ 1.8%) were found to contain 18 molecules with molecular formulae that correspond to biological amino acids and nucleotide bases. Very high-resolution mass spectrometry of isotopically labeled samples confirmed that C 4 H 5 N 3 O, C 4 H 4 N 2 O 2 , C 5 H 6 N 2 O 2 , C 5 H 5 N 5 , and C 6 H 9 N 3 O 2 are produced by chemistry in the simulation chamber. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses of the non-isotopic samples confirmed the presence of cytosine (C 4 H 5 N 3 O), uracil (C 5 H 4 N 2 O 2 ), thymine (C 5 H 6 N 2 O 2 ), guanine (C 5 H 5 N 5 O), glycine (C 2 H 5 NO 2 ), and alanine (C 3 H 7 NO 2 ). Adenine (C 5 H 5 N 5 ) was detected by GC-MS in isotopically labeled samples. The remaining prebiotic molecules were detected in unlabeled samples only and may have been affected by contamination in the chamber. These results demonstrate that prebiotic molecules can be formed by the highenergy chemistry similar to that which occurs in planetary upper atmospheres and therefore identifies a new source of prebiotic material, potentially increasing the range of planets where life could begin.

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Organic environments on Saturn’s moon, Titan: Simulating chemical reactions and analyzing products by FT-ICR and ion-trap mass spectrometry

Cited by 65 publications

References 29 publications

Earth as a Tool for Astrobiology—A European Perspective

Earth as a Tool for Astrobiology—A European Perspective

High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed 40 years after its fall

Formation of Amino Acids and Nucleotide Bases in a Titan Atmosphere Simulation Experiment

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