Extraterrestrial hexamethylenetetramine in meteorites—a precursor of prebiotic chemistry in the inner solar system

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Oba, Yasuhiro, Takano, Yoshinori, Naraoka, Hiroshi, Furukawa, Yoshihiro, Glavin, Daniel P., Dworkin, Jason P., Tachibana, Shogo
• Other Authors: MEXT | Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Simons Foundation, NASA | NASA Astrobiology Institute
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2020
• Subjects: General Physics and Astronomy; General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; General Chemistry; Murchison; Tagish; Tagish Lake
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20038-x; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20038-x.pdf; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20038-x

Abstract Despite extensive studies on the formation of organic molecules in various extraterrestrial environments, it still remains under debate when, where, and how such molecules were abiotically formed. A key molecule to solve the problem, hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) has not been confirmed in ex...