Understanding the delivery and preservation of organic molecules in meteoritic material is important to understanding the origin of life on earth. The astrobiology roadmap (DES marais ET AL. 2008)…

Understanding the delivery and preservation of organic molecules in meteoritic material is important to understanding the origin of life on earth. The astrobiology roadmap (DES marais ET AL. 2008) lists understanding how habitable planets acquire organic compounds and how organic compounds are assembled into more complex molecular structures as important research objectives. Additionally, delivery and preservation of organic molecules, volatiles, and water were highlighted in two science initiatives at the NAI strategic science initiative workshop in tempe, AZ (may 2009). Though we know that organic molecules are abundant in meteorites, comets, and interplanetary dust particles, few studies have examined how impact processes affect their chemistry and survivability under extreme temperatures and pressures. This study proposes to examine how impact events may change the structure of the simplest sugars, glycolaldehyde and dihydroxyacetone, two molecules that have been detected in interstellar clouds and meteorites, respectively. We will also study how these impacts affect sugars embedded in ICE and mineral matrices, as analogs to comets and meteorites. We will use the flat-plate accelerator at the johnson space center experimental impact laboratory to investigate how these sugars react under the extreme pressures and temperatures of simulated terrestrial impact events. Shocked solutions will be analyzed by LC/MS, GC/MS, NMR, and maldi-tofms in order to determine the number and identity of the species in the mixtures and then compared to analyses of unreacted mixtures. IT is likely that under the extreme conditions of the simulated impact events the sugars in solution will form more complex molecules, such as threose (formed from the dimerization of glycolaldehyde) or fructose (formed from the dimerization of dihydroxyacetone). This outcome would be significant to understanding the delivery and subsequent shock chemistry of extraterrestrial biomolecules because IT would show that these molecules could survive impact events to form more complex molecules.