Widespread Presence of Glycolaldehyde and Ethylene Glycol Around Sagittarius B2

Abstract

We report the detection of widespread CH${}_2$OHCHO and HOCH${}_2$CH${}_2$OH emission in Galactic center giant molecular cloud Sagittarius B2 using the Shanghai Tianma 65m Radio Telescope. Our observations show for the first time that the spatial distribution of these two important prebiotic molecules extends over 15 arc-minutes, corresponding to a linear size of approximately 36 pc. These two molecules are not just distributed in or near the hot cores. The abundance of these two molecules seems to decrease from the cold outer region to the central region associated with star-formation activity. Results present here suggest that these two molecules are likely to form through a low temperature process. Recent theoretical and experimental studies demonstrated that prebiotic molecules can be efficiently formed in icy grain mantles through several pathways. However, these complex ice features cannot be directly observed, and most constraints on the ice compositions come from millimeter observations of desorbed ice chemistry products. These results, combined with laboratory studies, strongly support the existence of abundant prebiotic molecules in ices.

20 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ

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• Astrochemistry During the Formation of Stars
• The ALMA-PILS survey: Inventory of complex organic molecules towards IRAS 16293-2422 A
• Mapping Observations of complex organic molecules around Sagittarius B2 with ARO 12m telescope
• Cometary glycolaldehyde as a source of pre-RNA molecules
• SRG/eROSITA discovery of a radio faint X-ray candidate supernova remnant SRGe J003602.3+605421=G121.1-1.9
• Propionamide (C2H5CONH2): The largest peptide-like molecule in space
• Complex organic molecules uncover deeply embedded precursors of hot cores
• Complex Organic Molecules Formation in Cold Cores on Stochastically Heated Grains
• Chemical properties of two dense cores in a Planck Galactic Cold Clump G168.72-15.48
• Complex Organic Molecules towards the central molecular zone of NGC 253
• The SKA as a prebiotic molecule detector
• Chemistry of Dark Molecular Clouds