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Evidence for biodegradation products in the interstellar medium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2009

Kani Rauf  and
Chandra Wickramasinghe
Kani Rauf
Affiliation:
Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, 2 North Road, Cardiff CF10 3DY, UK
Chandra Wickramasinghe*
Affiliation:
Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, 2 North Road, Cardiff CF10 3DY, UK
*
e-mail: Wickramasinghe@cf.ac.uk
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Abstract

The interstellar absorption band centred on 2175 Å that is conventionally attributed to monodisperse graphite spheres of radii 0.02 μm is more plausibly explained as arising from biologically derived aromatic molecules. On the basis of panspermia models, interstellar dust includes a substantial fraction of biomaterial in various stages of degradation. We have modeled such an ensemble of degraded biomaterial with laboratory spectroscopy of algae, grass pigments, bituminous coal and anthracite. The average ulrtraviolet absorption profile for these materials is centred at 2175 Å with a full width at half maximum of 250 Å, in precise agreement with the interstellar extinction observations. Mid-infrared spectra also display general concordance with the unidentified interstellar absorption features found in a wide variety of astronomoical sources.

Keywords

degradation products of biomateriainterstellar dustpanspermiapolycyclic aromatic hydrocarboninterstellar molecules
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 29 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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