Prebiotic relevance of interstellar ices

Interstellar ices: a possible scenario for symmetry breaking of extraterrestrial chiral organic molecules of prebiotic interest

In the laboratory, the photo-and thermochemical evolution of ices, made of simple molecules of astrophysical relevance, always leads to the formation of semi-refractory water-soluble organic residues. Targeted searches for specific molecules do reveal the notable presence of two families of important molecular ''bricks of life'': amino acids, key molecules in metabolism, and sugars, including ribose, the backbone of RNA molecules which support the genetic information in all living entities.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04575