PAH world hypothesis

The PAH world hypothesis is a speculative hypothesis that proposes that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), known to be abundant in the universe,[1][2][3] including in comets,[4] and assumed to be abundant in the primordial soup of the early Earth, played a major role in the origin of life by mediating the synthesis of RNA molecules, leading into the RNA world. However, as yet, the hypothesis is untested.[5]

A PAH stack assembling
  1. ^ Carey, Bjorn (October 18, 2005). "Life's Building Blocks 'Abundant in Space'". Space.com. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  2. ^ Hudgins, Douglas M.; Bauschlicher, Jr, Charles W.; Allamandola, L. J. (October 10, 2005). "Variations in the Peak Position of the 6.2 μm Interstellar Emission Feature: A Tracer of N in the Interstellar Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Population". Astrophysical Journal. 632 (1): 316–332. Bibcode:2005ApJ...632..316H. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.218.8786. doi:10.1086/432495. S2CID 7808613.
  3. ^ Allamandola, Louis; et al. (April 13, 2011). "Cosmic Distribution of Chemical Complexity". NASA. Archived from the original on February 27, 2014. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  4. ^ Clavin, Whitney (February 10, 2015). "Why Comets Are Like Deep Fried Ice Cream". NASA. Retrieved February 10, 2015.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference snp1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).