Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS): The organic composition diversity at 300--1000 au scale in Solar-type star forming regions

TL;DR

The SOLIS project investigates the diversity of complex organic molecules in Solar-like star forming regions at various scales, revealing significant chemical variation and setting upper limits on methoxy abundance, advancing understanding of prebiotic chemistry in space.

Contribution

This study presents the first results from SOLIS, a large observational project imaging organic molecules in star forming regions, highlighting molecular diversity and chemical abundance limits.

Findings

Observed large diversity in organic content across regions.

Derived upper limits for methoxy abundance (~10^-12 to 10^-11).

Identified chemical variations at different spatial scales.

Abstract

Complex organic molecules have been observed for decades in the interstellar medium. Some of them might be considered as small bricks of the macromolecules at the base of terrestrial life. It is hence particularly important to understand organic chemistry in Solar-like star forming regions. In this article, we present a new observational project: SOLIS (Seeds Of Life In Space). This is a Large Project at the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer, and its scope is to image the emission of several crucial organic molecules in a sample of Solar-like star forming regions in different evolutionary stage and environments. Here, we report the first SOLIS results, obtained from analysing the spectra of different regions of the Class 0 source NGC1333-IRAS4A, the protocluster OMC-2 FIR4, and the shock site L1157-B1. The different regions were identified based on the images of formamide (NH2CHO) and cyanodiacetylene (HC5N) lines. We discuss the observed large diversity in the molecular and organic content, both on large (3000-10000 au) and relatively small (300-1000 au) scales. Finally, we derive upper limits to the methoxy fractional abundance in the three observed regions of the same order of magnitude of that measured in few cold prestellar objects, namely ~10^-12-10^-11 with respect to H2 molecules.