Comet chemistry

This pathway sets the direction for the remainder of this chapter but has the same basic strategy for the understanding of meteorite chemistry, comet chemistry, planetary atmospheric chemistry, prebiotic chemistry and ultimately the chemistry of an organism. This pathway is the molecule-up view of the Universe. 

If this is an important production reaction for amino acids, what concentrations are required globally to generate the amino acid budget and should this represent a global concentration within the oceans The concentrations of HCN and NH4"1" are limiting in this process and HCN in particular is familiar from comet chemistry. Amino acids seem to be synthesised rather easily in the chemistry of a reducing atmosphere or from exogenous delivery. 

Donn B. Comets chemistry and chemical evolution. J Mol Evol 1982 18 157-60. 

In two independent studies that simulated comet chemistry, racemic amino acids formed after irradiation with UV light (Bernstein et al. 2002 Munoz-Caro et al. 2002). The results indicate that the distribution of amino acids correlated with the abundance of hydrous silicates. This raises the prospect of a participation of the primary asymmetric phases of minerals in the ee observed in the a-methyl-amino acids in the Murchison meteorite. This result points to a possible inorganic catalysis on the surface of minerals as a source of the ee of amino acids formed to various extent in interstellar and planetary abiotic processes. 

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