Discovery of the elusive radical NCO and confirmation of H₂NCO⁺ in space.

ABSTRACT: The isocyanate radical (NCO) is the simplest molecule containing the backbone of the peptide bond, C(=O)-N. This bond has a prebiotic interest since is the one linking two amino acids to form large chains of proteins. It is also present in some organic molecules observed in space such as HNCO, NH₂CHO and CH₃NCO. In this letter we report the first detection in space of NCO towards the dense core L483. We also report the identification of the ion H₂NCO⁺, definitively confirming its presence in space, and observations of HNCO, HOCN, and HCNO in the same source. For NCO, we derive a column density of 2.2×10¹² cm^-2, which means that it is only ~5 times less abundant than HNCO. We find that H₂NCO⁺, HOCN and H

SUBMITTER: Marcelino N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6027991 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature