CHAPTER 10. Interstellar Complex Organic Molecules: A Step Toward Biomolecule Building Blocks in the Skies

Abstract

The discovery, in the last few decades, of an increasing number of organic molecules in interstellar space suggests that significant steps towards the origin of life could have been taken also in this hostile environment. Any progress toward the solution of this fascinating puzzle requires the elucidation of how molecular systems showing a certain degree of complexity could be formed, together with an understanding of the role of all competing mechanisms in determining the observed molecular abundances. In this framework, this chapter aims at giving an overview of the gas-phase reactivity at work in the interstellar medium through the presentation of selected examples focused on prebiotic species. The potentialities of accurate quantum-chemical computations followed by kinetic computations rooted in the latest developments of transition state theory and master equation approaches will be addressed, also providing a short review of the basic methodological and numerical aspects.