A chemical link between methylamine and methylene imine and implications for interstellar glycine formation

Abstract

The detection of glycine in comets is suggestive of a cosmic origin for amino acids on Earth, but the formation of glycine in interstellar media remains poorly understood. Here, infrared spectroscopy shows that the CH2NH2 radical can be formed from H + CH3NH2 in conditions relevant to dark interstellar clouds, supporting the proposal that glycine could be formed from the reaction of CH2NH2 and HOCO radicals.