Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon:
Researchers from Australia, Sweden, and the UK studied the indenyl cation, C9H7+ and revealed how Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons molecules survived in Taurus Molecular Cloud 1 (TMC1).
- Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are flat, ring-shaped molecules of carbon and hydrogen.
- Astronomers think they make up a fifth of all carbon in interstellar space.
- There is a hypothesis that meteors brought PAHs from space to young earth and created the first building blocks of life, attaching important value to their ability to survive in space.
- They have a relatively low solubility in water but are highly lipophilic and are soluble in most organic solvents.
- These hydrocarbons, on earth, are formed through incomplete combustion or pyrolysis of organic materials, such as fossil fuels and biomass
- When PAHs collide with other particles or absorb high-energy radiation, they can have more internal energy than their weakest chemical bond can handle.
