Synonyms
Chemical Formula
CH3CONH2
Definition
Acetamide is an organic molecule with potential astrobiological significance, since it includes an amide bond, –NHCO–, which makes it potentially a marker of hydrolytic activity. Acetamide has been detected in the interstellar medium in the Galactic Center molecular cloud SgrB2, in carbonaceous chondrites (e.g., Halfen et al. 2011), and also apparently in the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by the Philae lander as part of the Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency (Goesmann et al. 2015).
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References and Further Reading
Goesmann F, Rosenbauer H, Bredehöft JH, Cabane M, Ehrenfreund P, Gautier T, Giri C, Krüger H, Le Roy L, MacDermott AJ, McKenna-Lawlor S, Meierhenrich UJ, Muñoz Caro GM, Raulin F, Roll R, Steele A, Steininger H, Sternberg R, Szopa C, Thiemann W, Ulamac S (2015) Organic compounds on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko revealed by COSAC mass spectrometry. Science 349(6247). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab0689
Halfen DT, Ilyushin VV, Ziurys LM (2011) Formation of peptide bonds in space. Astrophys J 743:60–72
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Irvine, W.M. (2023). Acetamide. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65093-6_5321
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