Production and chemical analysis of cometary ice tholins

Abstract

Organic heteropolymers that we call here ice tholin II have been produced by plasma discharge irradiation of water/ methanol/carbon dioxide/ethane cocondensed ices in a rough simulation of cometary chemistry. The radiation yield of these organic heteropolymers is approximately 10-26 g/eV. Intermediate products including polyalcohols, ethers, esters, carboxylic acids, and hydrocarbons are also produced. No detectable polyoxymethylene is generated in this experiment. Preliminary chemical analyses of ice tholin using spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques lead to the conclusion that ice tholin contains a significant degree of polyalcohol functionality, as well as aliphatic hydrocarbon groups and carbonyl-containing groups such as ketones and esters. Ice tholin II shows some spectroscopic similarities to 1 : 6 ethane/water ice tholin (ice tholin I), but overall the two are chemically distinct. Ice tholins may be difficult to detect in comets due to their low volatility, but nevertheless may have been delivered to the early Earth by cometary impacts and interplanetary dust particles. These polyalcohol-containing molecules would then have been available to participate in prebiotic chemistry, such as the synthesis of acyclic nucleic acid analogues which have been suggested as the first biomacromolecules. © 1996 Academic Press, Inc.